January 29, 2025 • 59 mins
In this special anniversary episode of the Legacy Bible Podcast, we reflect on one year of sharing timeless messages from the Fellowship Bible Church tape archives. Join us as we delve into a powerful sermon from October 29, 1989, titled "God Wants to Be Our First Love," delivered by Reverend Chuck Rains. Pastor Rains continues the exploration of the life of David, focusing on the profound lessons learned when God's protection is withdrawn due to unrepentant sin. He emphasizes the importance of giving God our full devotion and the consequences of holding onto sin. With references to Proverbs and the story of Eli's sons, Pastor Rains highlights the seriousness of God's discipline and the necessity of repentance and forgiveness for true fellowship with Him. This episode serves as a poignant reminder to surrender fully to God, allowing Him to be our first love and guide us through life's challenges with grace and wisdom.
For comments or questions, please email us at marcus@legacybiblepodcast.com.
Visit our website at www.legacybiblepodcast.com to explore transcripts and other resources, including past episodes and our YouTube channel.
Please note that we are working on updating the transcripts due to recent delays.
Thank you for listening, and please subscribe to stay updated with our latest episodes.
Join us next week as we embark on a new year of the Legacy Bible Podcast, continuing to bring you inspiring messages from the Fellowship Bible Church tape archives.
Check out the Church Website at www.fbcjoliet.com for more resources and updates.
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Episode Transcript
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(00:29):
Hello friends and welcome, or welcome
Back. This is the Legacy
Bible Podcast, uh, a place where you
hear legacy audio or
vintage audio or wherever you want to call it,
but its audio of Bible lessons
from our tape Archive, the
(00:49):
tape archive of the Fellowship Bible Church
in Joliet Illinois. All messages is taught by
our pastor, the Reverend Chuck
Rains And in this episode,
it's going to be our anniversary
episode.
Yeah, one year.
So, uh, that's really
(01:11):
something. I started this
over well over a year ago when
I started working on creating, uh,
the content and converting tapes into
MP3's and here we
are one year later, episode
53.
So thats great. I don't know
(01:33):
what else to say but one year.
But Ill continue on and who
knows? We well go many, many, many
more years to go.
So this episode though is from
continuation of the Life of David from
1989. The exact date
is October 29,
(01:54):
1989, and it is titled
God Wants to Be Our First Love
from October of 1989,
uh, preached by our pastor, like I said,
the Reverend Chuck rains of the Fellowship Bible Church
in Joliet Illinois.
So here we go. Take it away pastor
(02:16):
rains.
We get into some very serious matters here
in this study of David's life.
When the Lord's overshadowing protection and
provision for the life of his
(02:36):
child are, uh, withdrawn.
When the Lord has tried to show us our sin,
but we will not
turn from it. We won't hate
it. We won't cast ourselves on him.
(02:57):
M When we demand to be
able to hold on to even a little of
our right to do something that
God has shown us in his
word is sinful or even to
think certain sinful thoughts. When we demand
our right to hold on to even a little of that.
(03:19):
When the Lord has spoken gently and
softly and tenderly.
Maybe even as I thought of Hana Ruth here as one would
want to speak to a young child,
m trying to correct us,
(03:43):
but we won't give him our heart's
devotion. There's still a holding
back demand to
have something of life on our own terms.
You know, what you force the Lord to do then
he has to speak more loudly. He
has to speak more forcefully.
(04:03):
His correction must be applied
until he brings us to the place where
we respond.
He will withdraw his
overshadowing protection and provision
to the point you'll, uh, withdraw it to the point
that it brings the desired
(04:26):
response till it
brings you to the place where you're going to finally say,
lord, I can't
endure life without
giving my whole self to you.
He would bring you to that point. That doesn't
mean that everybody even brought to that point
(04:47):
will surrender. The Lord will do
his part. The Lord will do faithfully
do all that should be done to help
you come to the place where you would fully
surrender your life to Him.
The surrendering, the walking,
going to be up to
(05:08):
you.
Sometimes
that point comes as one of the hardest
periods of our life.
If we have, uh,
a history of stubbornness, self will,
resistance to God, we could come to a
really difficult, difficult time of
(05:31):
life through the Lord's chasten thing.
I say again, it could be one of the hardest times of our life.
And God won't hold back. He'll let that
hard time come.
Um, remember, the Lord loves us. All
he wants
(05:53):
is for all of our love first to be given to
Him. He wants to be our first
love,
nothing second best.
Now, the Scriptures teach something on this.
There are some hard words for us.
Proverbs 20 Ninese
1. He that
(06:15):
being often reproved, hardeneth his
neck shall suddenly be destroyed, and that
without remedy. There's a whole
section I'd like to read from. First chapter
of Proverbs. You'll go to that
first chapter.
It's a, uh, little longer section, so
(06:38):
it sets it in our minds, I think a little more
forcefully.
Starting at verse 23.
I'm reading from the New American Standard.
Turn to my reproof. Behold, I will
(07:00):
pour out my spirit on you.
I will make my words known to you.
Because I called you and you
refused. I stretched out my
hand and no one paid
attention. And you neglected all
my counsel and did not want my
(07:20):
reproof. I will even laugh
at your calamity. I
will mock when your dread comes.
When your dread comes like a storm,
and your calamity comes on like a
whirlwind. When distress and anguish
come on you, then they will
(07:42):
call on me.
But I will not answer.
They will seek me diligently, but they shall not find
me. Because they
hated knowledge and did not
choose the fear of the Lord,
they would not accept my counsel.
(08:04):
They spurned all my reproof.
So they shall eat of the fruit of their own
way
m and be
satiated with their own devices.
For the waywardness of the naive shall kill
them, and the
(08:27):
complacency of fools shall destroy
them. But he who
listens to me shall
live securely and shall be at
ease from the dread of evil.
Those are strong words.
What a plea from the heart of God. Did he not have
(08:49):
to deal with us that way?
But men's hearts are heart.
We can't sugarcoat what we therefore find
in these Scriptures, even dealing with David's life.
I was thinking about the example written
(09:11):
by Samuel
in these days of his
boyhood. Um,
reading along in that section, thinking about
Hannah's dedication of Samuel, I read
on and I, I saw this parallel teaching there
on the subject for this morning's 1
Samuel 2 at ver. 22.
(09:35):
This is Eli, you know, and how
we have from the Scripture that record of
the awfulness of the behavior of Eli's two
sons. Eli was a high priest, you
remember? 1
Samuel 2:22. Now, Eli
was very old, and he heard
(09:56):
all that his sons were doing to all Israel, and
how they lay with the women who
served at the doorway of the tent of meeting.
And he said to them,
why do you do such things?
The evil things that I hear from all these
people know
(10:18):
my sons. For the report is not good, which
I hear from the
Lord's people or, uh, the Lord's people
circulating. If one
man sins against another,
God will mediate for him.
But if a man sins against the Lord, who can
intercede for him?
(10:41):
But they would not listen to the voice of their Father.
For the Lord desired to put them to
death.
There it was, right at the tabernacle of
God. Open
fleshly
(11:02):
sin.
And God's
purpose was to take
their life because they would not listen.
That made me think of one John, chapter five,
the sin, um, unto death.
(11:23):
Because some people who will not heed
the counsel of God, who won't hear the rebuke of
God, are
sometimes they have to be dealt with
even by the taking of their life.
Sometimes this happens. 1 John
5, verse 16:17.
(11:45):
If anyone sees his brother
committing a sin not leading to death,
he shall ask, and God will for
him give life to those who commit
sin not leading to death.
There is a sin leading to
death. I do not say
(12:06):
that he should make request
for this. In other words,
when one goes that far, your prayer
is out of place.
All unrighteousness is sin. And there is a sin
not leading to death. I mean, don't
misunderstand. Sin is
(12:28):
all evil. All
unrighteousness is sin. But God doesn't
deal with all sin to the same
degree of chastening.
And death is that final word or act of
chastening. There are
degrees, uh, in ways in which the Lord
deals with us according to our resistance to
(12:50):
is working in our lives.
One resists to this place.
God may even take him home.
The scriptural mot. There several scriptural
examples of this But I think of the place
in 1 Corinthians 11 where there were some that were dead there at
the church of Corinth because they
(13:12):
turned the Lord's table
into an ugly
man centered
orgy. And then there
was the case also, you know, of Ananias and
Sapphia lying against the Holy Spirit
and they had to die as an
(13:33):
example to the rest of the
church. I mean there are these examples
in the Word of God, but that's the extreme.
They are exceptions. They are the extreme. And
so, uh, John gives us this last word. But now
understand, all unrighteousness is sin.
And much of course of what we do in our sinning
(13:54):
doesn' bring this penalty, uh, or
this chastening of death upon
us. But it's there. You ought to
know about it and you ought to realize that
God is not to be mocked
with your life.
Now, uh, David's life was filled with self
(14:17):
controlled efforts to meet his needs.
He wanted to be loved and he wanted to give love.
And that led him in self controlled ways to
multiply wives to himself and to commit adulteries and even to
commit murder to cover it all up.
But David wasn't a hypocrite.
(14:38):
He knew that he couldn't deal with sin in his own
sons when they followed in
his footsteps, when he hadn't fully gotten rid of it in his own
heart. You see, he was multiplying this
every day. He had. From
this chapter that follows our study,
he had at least 10 concubines,
(15:01):
seven that we could call
wives other than concubines. You know, he had
numbers here, he had
multiplied
and this was all around him. But he was not
a hypocrite. He couldn't, he couldn't deal with sin
in somebody else's life if he wasn't dealing with it fully
(15:21):
in his own. And I had preached on this
last week saying when you harbor certain sin in
your life, you weaken yourself in being able to deal with
it in the lives of those around you, even in your
own children or in your mate or your marriage. You
weaken yourself. You can't give counsel,
you know, righteously. There are some that do. But you are a
(15:42):
hypocrite. You know, you're a
hypocrite. David was not a hypocrite.
And so not being a hypocrite, he was weakened.
He was unable to really
deal with sin as he should have,
perhaps as it came in his own family, because
his own heart was not perfectly made right
(16:02):
yet in all of these things.
So God was going to have to deal harshly with
David to bring him to the end of himself.
And as these scriptures we've read say,
God will do it. He will
take us even to that place.
Remember that David's son Absalom
had killed his brother, uh,
(16:25):
Amnon. And David's captain,
Joab, had sent a
woman to tell a great tale, a great
story about things to,
um, tell David about deep
personal hurt that she had in her life. Really what her goal was,
or what Joab's goal was. To get
David to make certain
(16:47):
judgments that
sounded when David made them, and when he made them, he thought he
was talking about the woman. They sounded
like they were going to relieve that woman's problem
by forestalling judgment against
those her sons,
one in particular. But in
(17:08):
fact, once he stated that principle
that one had to be tender hearted, one had to have a place for
forgiveness, one had to keep their heart open to forgive.
One couldn't just automatically, uh, work
the judgment of God against unrighteousness. Now, it's true,
you know, God hates sin.
And we're not compromising with that teaching at all. When we
(17:30):
say that God judges sin,
he judged sin at the cross.
Christ's blood, uh, atones for
all sin
m. But for
those who won't trust him,
that atonement has no
(17:51):
benefit. They have to answer for their
own sin. He is the propitiation for our sins
and the sins of the whole world, but only for
those who trust Him. Does
that propitiation
work or serve a blessing?
Uh, it only does its work for those who
(18:12):
trust in Him. He is
a redeemer offered to the whole
world,
but he only redeems those
who would receive him, who
would trust in Him. The
love of God is as great for every one of
(18:32):
us.
Hey, but that love,
though one is loved infinitely, still isn't going to bear any fruit
unless that one trusts Christ.
(18:55):
Sure, to believed those that have believed that the
believers are most blessed to have been so loved by
God. But the unbelievers is much loved.
But sadly,
all the grace of God is frustrated.
(19:16):
All the purpose of God for redemption is set
aside.
And then when one trusts God,
he provides through what we have
in Christ our Savior, and by the work of the Spirit,
he provides a work of grace that would enable
us to walk righteously. Yet all of his children
(19:37):
sin, and they all have to be chastened. Yet we
can't ever blame God and say, well, you didn't give me enough
grace. You didn't provide enough for me.
That's a lie. The
provision is perfect.
The error isn't in God's provision.
The error is in man's appropriation.
(20:00):
And every child of God is
chastened of God as a son because
he goes his own way at some
point. And
God cries out to us as his children says, now
my children, listen, I love you.
And therefore I want you to walk in holiness. I want
you to walk in my love and be examples of
(20:22):
my love and my righteousness.
And if you don't,
I'll chasten you
now'll bring you to an end of yourselves,
even if I have to take you to the point of death
and take you out of this world for my greater
(20:42):
glory. That's basically or in someng
what the Scriptures teach on that subject.
David made his pronouncement about
really forgiveness being available for that woman's son.
And then it came around to
(21:03):
this that really it was being used as an illustration to teach
him that he ought to forgive his son Absalom and call Absalom
back.
Here's the problem, though, that without forgiveness,
without forgiveness of sin,
there can't be any restoration of fellowship. You
(21:23):
see, Absalom had run off after he
murdered Amnon. He knew good and well what
was going to happen to him if he stayed around.
And Jo Jobab was saying, david, two years have passed.
Can't you call him back? Can't there be
forgiveness?
Yes, David called him back.
(21:45):
Now, calling him back didn't give
fellowship back to them, though the two men weren't
at fellowship. Absalom came back.
Do you know? And for, uh, full two
years he was in Jerusalem and he never
saw David's face.
Wasn't because Absalom didn't want to see David's face. It's
(22:06):
because David didn't want to see Absalom's face.
He brought him geographically from
Gesher to Jerusalem,
but he was still in the wilderness
as far as David's spirit was concerned.
Do, uh, you know you can be closed in your spirit to somebody
(22:27):
even though they're in your own household,
though you may look upon their face physically every day,
if your heart doesn't look upon them
with openness of love and
fellowship, they're as far off from you as if
they had been in a wilderness,
(22:47):
because you really have put them in a wilderness of
spirit.
Absalom was there in Jerusalem, but he was not in
fellowship with his Father. And the reason is
because you can't have fellowship without
forgiveness. You've got to have
cleansing. You've got to give forgiveness for the
sin you've got to receive forgiveness of
(23:10):
sin for there to be fellowship, for there to be
restoration. David
had called his son back, but he had
not given forgiveness.
M. Now,
Absalom wasn't happy with the situation, so he
(23:31):
forced things. Have you ever forced
things? No, I'm sure not.
If things don't work out the way you want them to,
does your mind ever start turning ideas
over on how you can make them happen?
Well, Absalom sent to Joab, he thought, now, uh, I'm going to have
(23:52):
Joab um go and plead my case to my father and ask my
father to let me see his face. He sent to
Joab. Joab wouldn't respond.
Well, you know, try
it again. So he sent a second time to Joab. Joab would
not respond. Absalom
says, I, he said to himself, I'm going to make this man
(24:13):
respond to me. Now,
Absalom had a piece of land that was right
next to a piece of land owned by Joab.
So Absalom had a plan. He told his servants,
go set Joab's
field on fire. He had a
grain crop that was about ready to come in. It must have been
(24:35):
dry. So it was near harvest time.
And the servants obeyed, and
they went and set Joab's field on fire.
That got Joab moving.
You touch a man in his pocketbook,
you might get him to jump.
(24:55):
I said might. I didn't say you would, but you could. And
it works for most. And
Joab used this device of the flesh. He got.
He got at. I mean, uh,
Absalom used this. He got it, Joyab, where it hurt,
in his pocketbook. And Joyab, um, got
right over to Absalom's house, and he said, what have you
(25:16):
done? Why have you had your servants set my field on
fire? And
Absalom told him. He said, because
I wanted to see you and have you bring a
message to my father and have my father
invite me to come and see his face. I wanted
to have fellowship restored with my father.
(25:37):
I want you to come to my father, bring my message.
I want you to be my intermediary.
Well, Joyd knew that all the time.
He just didn't want to put himself in the place to have to do
it. Now he was put in the place. Now the
message was given to him. So what was he going to do?
Well, he went to David
(25:58):
and he said, well, David, why
don't you have Absalom
appear before you? It's been two years he's been here in
Jerusalem. You haven't let him come to your
presence being pressured
by Joab. M.
And it was a good pressure.
(26:22):
He brought Absalom before him.
Now, wait a minute. I want to read this.
In chapter 14 ATR, right near the end of
the chapter, at verse 33,
we'll see what the Scriptures say about this little
time when Joab was before the king.
(26:42):
So when Joab came to the king and told him,
he called for Absalom.
See, that's how it happened. Now, the last sentence of verse
33. Thus he came to the king and
prostrated himself on his face to the ground before the
king. And the king kissed Absalom. Now, you
know the kiss is an expression of
(27:03):
love. It shouldn't be turned into something just mere
formal, you know, like a
cold. How, um, are you?
Everything we say and do, we should mean
good to see you. You should say that because you really
are happy to see somebody. Not because it's a
(27:24):
courteous social thing to say, but because from your
heart you can say it with truth.
David kissed Absalom. Was
that enough?
Well, does this restore
fellowship? If there's
forgiveness there
(27:44):
on David's part, and if
Absalom receives that forgiveness, and if Absalom is
turned from his sin and hating his sin, is
truly seeking that forgiveness, and if David is giving that
forgiveness, we have a restoration going on
here. We have a father and son coming back together.
The question is, is sin fully
cleansed? Is it turned from?
(28:06):
Is it hated?
All the outward evidences are there.
Excuse me. How do we know whether sin
has been totally dealt with?
We know because we read the rest of the story.
Remember that fellowship requires two to
(28:27):
be righteous with one
another. Two have to
be righteous, clean from any sin against each
other. And as far as
that goes, if righteousness is going to work in
a relationship and we're talking about the future from that point
on, in all future treatment that one has of
the other, then any self serving purpose is
(28:50):
going to have to be set aside. Anything that one of those two
people have that is serving of self and
against the other is going to have to be set aside. So if
fellowship has been restored here, then we're going to have to look
at the life of David and the life of Absalom, and we're going
to see that each of them, uh, has set self
serving purpose aside and is truly
(29:10):
living openly in truth and righteousness and in
love with one another. Is that the story?
No, no. In
fact, it's just the reverse.
The story goes on that
Absalom was not
seeking a righteous restoration
(29:32):
of fellowship. He was, in fact, seeking,
uh, a relationship with his father that would
let him do his own will, have
his own glory, and serve his own
desires.
And the story that follows is really horrible.
I want to tell you ahead of time now. What
(29:55):
happens, as awful as it is,
was going to be used by God
to do a wonderful thing.
He was going to use this
time here with Absalom and the events that came out of
it to discipline David
more harshly than David had ever been disciplined in
(30:15):
his whole life. Up to this point, from his youth to this time
in his manhood, he has never been disciplined the way he's going to
be disciplined now. And I'm
saying even beyond the time when the baby
died that he had, uh, uh, caused
to be conceived with Bathsheba and all that
horrible discipline of God, this is going to be
more harsh than the loss of that one life,
(30:41):
more harsh than David has ever suffered any
discipline before. Now, I don't speak of the
trials that came upon him when he walked in righteousness
and Saul unjustly brought trials
on him. I'm talking about the discipline of God. Because of sin
in his life, things don't
get easier, they get harder because his
(31:01):
heart is not yet made perfect with the
Lord.
Why? Well, the
discipline of the Lord is that we might walk is
brought in our lives as Hebrews 12 against says, that we
might walk in righteousness or in holiness so that the
Lord could draw us close to himself. It's the
(31:23):
same with any parent that loves his child. Why do you discipline
your child? Because you love them,
because you want what's best for them.
Because you want to rid them from the things in their
lives that hurt them. And you want. I think
you want more than that. I do. As a father. Because
you want to draw them closer to you. You want to
(31:44):
draw them into your love fellowship.
I know to the child, it sounds often like you're just trying
to deal with the hurtful things in them.
And you're focused sometimes on that, and you're
forced to focus on that because that's where their minds, hearts
and activity is. But in reality, the loving
parent really hungers for the fellowship
(32:05):
of love with that, uh, child. They want to bring that child into the
closest possible relationship.
That's what God wants with us.
What Absalom did
was that he deceived the people of Israel.
(32:26):
How do he do that? Well, the story in
chapter 15, um,
simply, uh. What. I'm not going to go into details of it.
It's really a fantastic
plan for promoting Oneself. I
think any politician could read 2nd Samuel 15
and have anything
(32:48):
here that any, uh, fancy PR man could ever
give him.
You know, politics and you know how it works. And you should know how this
works. What Absalom
did was he championed every
cause of anybody that came to him.
He was for them. Man had
(33:09):
a complaint, he was for that man. The other guy came with the same
complaint he was for him. Of course, he didn't let him hear, you
know, to be careful not to say
things you said to people in front of one another. But he was
for everybody. He was everybod's
friend.
Great for politics because you win votes that way.
(33:31):
And that's what he was doing. He was politicking.
He was trying to flatter. He was a back
patter. I hope
you've learned in your life not to really
respect that kind of talk or that kind of person.
It just goes around saying things
(33:52):
because they're appreciated.
Uh, you're a wonderful person. I've never met somebody like
you. You're beautiful, handsome,
strong, wise, intelligent.
My, you're rich. Beyond
my understanding of wealth. Uh, you're so wise. You have
such understanding, such knowledge.
(34:15):
Somewhere along that list, you should start to see through
it. You know, it's like as fels either
deluded or, you know,
naive or something.
I mean, somewhere you should pick up on flattery.
Unless you really, in your spirit,
(34:38):
want to be elevated.
And because this worked in Israel, this is something
we know now about the hearts of the people of Israel,
that they wanted to be elevated in
their hearts. And I
suspect that the world is not too different today.
That's why it still works today.
(35:02):
So people started lining up behind Absalom. They
started thinking, my Absalom's the one that ought to be the
king.
And, uh, I want to read something to you and show you
how low this whole program got. Because
Absalom even came to the place where he used God to
further his own purposes. Verse
(35:23):
7 of chapter 15. Now, it
came about at the end of I'm going to read
the Word for in there some ancient manuscripts do,
four years that Absalom said to the king,
please let me go and pay my vow, which I have
vowed to the Lord in Hebron.
Now here is his vow for your servant. Vow to vow. While
(35:45):
I was living at Gesher in Aram,
saying, uh, here is his vow. If the Lord
shall indeed bring me back to Jerusalem, then
I will serve the Lord.
What did you say? Im telling you that this
man came to his father and said, do you know I made a
promise to God when I was out there in
(36:06):
Gesher, when you didn't want me to come home to
Jerusalem. I made a promise to God that if
someday, somehow, God would bring me back
to Jerusalem, I would serve the Lord the rest of
my life.
Sounds like a foxhole conversion, doesn't it?
Oh, God, get me out of here, and I'll serve you
(36:27):
all my life. You ever heard that kind of prayer?
I think that a lot of people have
prayed that kind of prayer.
But the sad thing is very often that if all they're
oriented to is their problem, that when they get out of their problem,
they forget their prayer.
(36:49):
I don't know if Absalom ever prayed that prayer or
ever really meant it at all, even in a moment.
But the truth of the matter is he's using
a, uh, reference to a vow to God,
the intention to live for God with his whole life
as David, uh, being the grounds for David to let him
go to Hebron. And it's a lie.
(37:11):
He's using God.
Don't play this game of saying, oh,
boy, you know, I promised the Lord such and
such and such and such, and that's why I'm doing this
fleshly thing I'm doing. I mean, you
can't use God as grounds for getting your
own way.
(37:32):
Don't deceive yourself, certainly even in trying to deceive
others. But Absalom got permission
from David, and off he went to Hebron, supposedly
to pay his vow to God, when in
fact he was going to Hebron to live there
so he could set up his own kingdom,
so he could use it as his base to set up his own
(37:52):
kingdom, let it be his capital, until one
day he could get into Jerusalem. It was a
lie. He even used God for his
purpose. In other words, he used every
man and woman that ever came to him. He used them for his
purpose. He used God for his
purpose.
(38:15):
Not the kind of man that you could trust.
But David didn't see any of this until it finally was told
to him. And so in, uh,
chap. 15 at ver. 13,
we have what I call a first blow of the discipline
of God. And it's
simply this that David had to flee from
(38:37):
Jerusalem because so many people had
gone over to Absalom. And when the
word came to David, O, the world, you know, was gone.
After Absalom, he said, well, we better leave Jerusalem
then. And so the first blow came, and the
only ones he Left behind
were 10 concupines to
keep the house. He had faithful
(38:59):
followers There were
some of the different. The aliens
really, that were among the people of Israel. In verse 18,
you see the kathites and the
Peathites and
theite Getites.
Gitttites. Am I got it right? I think
it'gittotites.
(39:21):
And there were the 600 men that had been with him, you know, all
the time, all the way back from the time he was down there,
uh, in the suburb of Gatt.
Well, all these
faithful people, and they followed David
right along. And in fact, there was a
man,
(39:42):
um,
named Itai
over him in verse 21. And there's
a famous statement from this one man I
think is worth reading. You might want to remember where this is in the
word of God, because David said, look,
you're an alien. Why don't you go back? You're not one of us.
(40:02):
You don't have to suffer in this whole
ordeal. Here's what this man Ita I
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.
(40:23):
I wonder if you could say that to the Lord Jesus,
Lord, wherever,
wherever you are, wherever you lead,
whether it means even to death,
I'll follow you.
That's what the Lord asks. So this
man becomes an example
(40:45):
of one of total
faithfulness.
And so off they went toward the wilderness.
Verse 23, you see, all they went
off the way of the wilderness is that verse
says toward the wilderness.
And David, uh, had deep
(41:08):
spiritual understanding. It's still with him here.
You can't use God as a rubber stamp.
David knew that. And two of the priests had brought
the Ark of the Covenant along. And
David spiritually understood that you can't just bring
the Ark of the Covenant along. Think God is going to be with
you simply because you have the box.
(41:31):
He told these men, take the Ark back
to Jerusalem,
because if God is with me, he'll
bring me again to that city, and I'll be able to look at
that Ark again. But if God
isn't with me,
well,
(41:54):
I'll leave things in the hands of the Lord. But he
knew this, that carrying along the
Ark wasn't some magic
potion. You don't want to
put, uh, you know, a God in a box and think you
can use him for your own purposes.
Be careful. David was
wise, spiritually wise.
(42:16):
I know he has the scars of sin in his life,
and I know he's going to be terribly disciplined here. But. But I also want
to tell you he was not a hypocrite. And he
was spiritually wise.
He also was humble. At verse
30 as he went.
I think you should see the picture of David and his going.
(42:39):
Number one, he was weeping.
And number two,
showing this, this admission of weakness,
he had his head covered.
And number three, he was barefooted.
(43:03):
And he was justmitting and showing his submission
to God. And all of that humility.
Humility. David was
humbling himself before God. He
was recognizing
that God's counsel was the only counsel of
wisdom. And that's what he says in verse 31
(43:23):
here. Now someone,
um,
told um, David saying Ahithophel is among the
conspirators with Absalom. And David said, O Lord,
I pray, make the council of Ahithophel foolishness.
See, Ahithophel was back there going to give counsel to
Absalom. So how does David prayse? He said, the Lord
(43:45):
make Ahithophel's counsel foolishness.
David knew that the counsel of the
Lord was the only counsel that should be followed.
He was
humble,
he was wise. He was not a hypocrite.
(44:06):
And he depended on the counsel of God only.
So what did he do? I, uh, guess you could
say this is an application of what the Lord Jesus called the wisdom of
a serpent. But what he did was
put a spy in Absalom's camp
(44:26):
and he sent Huosai back there. And he really put him
there to confuse the Hitophell'council and it just
the wisdom of God, I think that
he's wise in the Lord. When he sends this spy back
there, he says, you go back there and you pretend to
be Absalom's, uh, loyal
follower. And when you know,
uh, Ahithophel gives his
(44:48):
counsel, you confuse it.
Now the second blow for the discipline of
God against David
was when, remember
Mephibosheh, that man lame
on both his feet. Remember when David blessed him
and let him eat at table, at his table
(45:10):
all the days of his life, he rather than kill him,
he was a last, uh, direct descendant of
Jonathan. Well, he had a servant named
Zeba. And Zeba was commissioned by
David, commanded by David to watch over the
lands and take care of the lands. Well Zea coveted
those lands for himself. And now
with David running out of the city, Zeba shows up on
(45:33):
the scene with animals laden
with good, uh, things to eat
for the people as they go on their way.
And David says, oh my, how
come you're here? Uh, where's your m. Master
O. He basically says this, oh, uh,
he stayed back. He's given his allegiance to
(45:53):
Absalom. And David said,
oh well, okay then every thing that
belongs to him you can have all of his lands, all of
his possessions, they're now yours.
You see, when people are in
trouble, our flesh is so quick
to look for an opportunity to get something for
(46:13):
ourselves. Zeba is an illustration of somebody who
takes advantage of the moment in a self
serving way without any concern, uses
lie, deceit, know, doesn't have any
concern for anyone else. Especially that helpless lame
man that couldn't leave the city
without the very animals that this man used
(46:34):
to carry these things to David and to make his
pretense. And
so he cast Mephibosheh in such an evil role, when
in fact Mephibosheh was not. Mephiboshev
was a faithful servant of
David and he remains such.
It says that Mephiboshe didn't take
(46:54):
care of his feet. Now remember, he's lame on both his
feet. No doubt he had
to bathe them and keep them. He
didn't trim his mustache.
All the days that David was gone.
He didn't care for himself and keep himself up,
so to speak. He'd mourn for David's
absence. Mephibeshhev was a man of pure
(47:16):
heart. But there are some people that look for
self advantage and that
God used to discipline David, even bringing him
under that deception. The third blow of
discipline was from uh,
a man who came along and cursed David.
Here it's in chapter 15, I'm sorry, 16.
(47:37):
And it's uh, verses five through eight
when Sheimi that comes along and
curses David. And
he threw stones at him, can you
imagine, he's throwing stones at David and saying
curses on you. Curses. And
why? Because of all the blood that David had
shed of the house of Saul. Because he
(47:59):
says, you're a bloody man. And he was a bloody
man. And he had slain
many in the house of Saul in that time
when there was that attrition, you know,
of the decrease of Saul's
family and the increase of David's followers.
(48:20):
So one stepp forward and said, well let me cut his head
off. And Davis said, no,
no, I don't want you to cut his head off.
Because this could be from the
Lord. It
could be from the Lord.
I won't let you do that. In
(48:42):
fact he says in verse 11, for the Lord has
told him,
in other words, he was not only
willing, he was wise, he
was humble,
but he was also willing to be rebuked.
But in this time of
(49:02):
discipline he was deceived,
yes, but he was deceived
looking for pure hearts in
others. That's how Zebra got in.
He was wise in the Lord and sending the spy
into Absalom's camp. But he was also a, uh, man
here, even under the hand of discipline, who was willing
(49:22):
to be disciplined. If
God sent it, he was going to receive it.
And then the fourth blow came.
And that came as a fulfillment of the
prophecy that'back there in chapter 12. And you don't have to
turn to it. I want you to. I just want you to know. It's back in
1211 when he is s being
rebuked for the sin of his adulteries
(49:45):
with Bathsheba. And you know, Nathan, the
prophet comes and points his finger at him and tells him he's
the man. And then he pronounces a
great judgment on him. He said, the time is going
to come when one of your own
family is going to, uh,
lay openly before the sun,
right out in the sunshine, is going to lay with
(50:08):
your wives.
And that's what happened.
Terrible discipline. He left those 10 concubines
behind. And Ahithophel gave
counsel and said, oh, the way to show you
have a strength and uh,
you, uh, that you truly are alienated from your
(50:29):
father. So that the cord is cut. And people
can be very sure, you know, that they're not going to
see a, uh, compromise here, that you're truly your own
man and you're against David. You
should put those women
up on the rooftop and you should go right into
them in front of all of Israel. See,
(50:50):
the house of the king was on a hillside. And
what they did, they put a tent up on top of the roof of the king's
house. And, uh, Absalom went
into the 10 women
and violated him.
And that struck, you see, at the very core
of those things that David had tried to get to
(51:11):
him, to meet his own needs, under his own
power. Multiplication of
wives and
concubines.
The discipline of God hit him so hard.
And yet he waited,
(51:32):
yielded, willing to be disciplined,
not rebellious.
And eventually God used
all that discipline and
David's submission to it
to show Absalom's sinful
heart,
(51:54):
to cast Absalom out, although it
had to be in a, uh, terrible way, and brought him about
ultimately, by Absalom's death,
he used all of that to
draw David one step closer
to himself, to God's heart.
(52:14):
To.
Cause David to cast himself upon the
Lord, the
one thing that God had cried out for, for
David from the time of his youth.
Lastly, people, we'll go into the details of that somewhat
again.
But I think the
(52:35):
story, the lesson for us, and it's
so sharp a lesson.
The Lord wants us to walk with him. He
wants us to fellowship with him in love, but in
righteousness. And he doesnt want us to
reserve things to ourselves.
He'looking for a tender heart.
(52:56):
He'looking for a contrite heart,
a broken heart. But hes looking for a humble heart.
He's looking for one looking to his counsels and
wisdom, and one that's willing to be shown where he's
wrong. And one that's not
a hypocrite, but looking for
purity in the hearts of others.
(53:17):
And that's what David was.
And therefore he could see some of his own sin
we could wish he would have broken fully and
absolutely, even in this inst. But
isn't it amazing that God is so patient
with us? And even with this man, after
this great discipline, there was still a
(53:38):
work to be done in David.
Never. See that little pin.
Uh, don't be,
um, disappointed with me or
something like that. God has not finished with me yet.
(53:59):
Do you know when the Lord is going to be finished with you?
When he says, come up hither
and he will be finished with you. Until
then, the Holy Spirit of God is
going to lead and teach and convict and cleanse
as you let him.
(54:22):
And make you more like your Savior.
Because your Lord loves you enough
to want to do that work until you
conform to the image of his son.
I speak to you as God's children.
He loves you that much. Lets
pray. Lord Jesus, thank you for
(54:45):
your love for us.
Not only, Lord have you died that we might be
given salvation in the sense of a, uh, present
possession, but
you have died that we might have salvation as a
living experience,
outworking it in us and through us by the Holy
Spirit of God to bring us into
(55:08):
that sweet moment by moment fellowship with
you that you desire.
Thank you for the disciplines of your hand.
Thank you for the working of the Spirit of
God to teach
those that would be taught to
lead those that would be led
(55:30):
to give wisdom. Where there are those
that will yield to your counsels, to those
that will love your word,
and to bless those that would receive the
blessing.
And we love you for that.
(55:51):
And we ask that you might do a fuller work in us
today and draw us
close. Lord, we could say,
we'll follow you,
even if it means to death.
I pray everyone here might be able to say that in
their heart, you are my Lord.
(56:15):
I cannot separate myself from you.
I will follow you as My Lord, until
death
in Jesus name, amen.
All right, there we go. One year
(56:36):
anniversary of the Legacy Bible
Podcast. So many more years to
come. At least I hope so.
Okay, so if you want to like have more information about
the podcast, you can go to the website which
is
www.legacybiblepodcast.com.
(56:56):
you could check that out. There's some, um,
resources up there, some um,
transcripts. And although him you may be a
little bit behind on a transcripts there, you
haven uh, haven't put any up there
for a while because my sister's been sick. But
we re work, we're working on it. So
go there and check it out. Pl you can listen to, listen
(57:19):
to the podcast there also. You
so inclined. And I want you
to know about the church's website.
They were having their uh, their website updated because
it hasn't been updated in a long time.
So you should check it out. And it
is
fbcjoliet.com
(57:41):
so fbcjoliet.com
is where they're at. I know they were updating it and they're
gonna put some more transcripts up there and I think there's
some, some more audio files up there so you can
listen to those there. If you want more,
more of Pastor rains,
you can listen and read up at
(58:01):
the church's, uh, website
or you can just listen on my website, which
is legacy
biblepodcast.com. so
thank you for listening. Come back next
week or beginning uh, our new
year actually. Well, a
new podcast year, not the actual
(58:23):
chronological new year because it's going to be
February already. But we re
starting the second year of the Legacy Bible podcast.
So come on back. We'll be glad to have
you bring your friends, have them
listened too. So thank you for
listening. And you know what I always say,
uh, have a great day. See you
(58:46):
next time.
Hello friends and welcome, or welcome
Back. This is the Legacy
Bible Podcast, uh, a place where you
hear legacy audio or
vintage audio or wherever you want to call it,
but its audio of Bible lessons
from our tape Archive, the
(00:49):
tape archive of the Fellowship Bible Church
in Joliet Illinois. All messages is taught by
our pastor, the Reverend Chuck
Rains And in this episode,
it's going to be our anniversary
episode.
Yeah, one year.
So, uh, that's really
(01:11):
something. I started this
over well over a year ago when
I started working on creating, uh,
the content and converting tapes into
MP3's and here we
are one year later, episode
53.
So thats great. I don't know
(01:33):
what else to say but one year.
But Ill continue on and who
knows? We well go many, many, many
more years to go.
So this episode though is from
continuation of the Life of David from
1989. The exact date
is October 29,
(01:54):
1989, and it is titled
God Wants to Be Our First Love
from October of 1989,
uh, preached by our pastor, like I said,
the Reverend Chuck rains of the Fellowship Bible Church
in Joliet Illinois.
So here we go. Take it away pastor
(02:16):
rains.
We get into some very serious matters here
in this study of David's life.
When the Lord's overshadowing protection and
provision for the life of his
(02:36):
child are, uh, withdrawn.
When the Lord has tried to show us our sin,
but we will not
turn from it. We won't hate
it. We won't cast ourselves on him.
(02:57):
M When we demand to be
able to hold on to even a little of
our right to do something that
God has shown us in his
word is sinful or even to
think certain sinful thoughts. When we demand
our right to hold on to even a little of that.
(03:19):
When the Lord has spoken gently and
softly and tenderly.
Maybe even as I thought of Hana Ruth here as one would
want to speak to a young child,
m trying to correct us,
(03:43):
but we won't give him our heart's
devotion. There's still a holding
back demand to
have something of life on our own terms.
You know, what you force the Lord to do then
he has to speak more loudly. He
has to speak more forcefully.
(04:03):
His correction must be applied
until he brings us to the place where
we respond.
He will withdraw his
overshadowing protection and provision
to the point you'll, uh, withdraw it to the point
that it brings the desired
(04:26):
response till it
brings you to the place where you're going to finally say,
lord, I can't
endure life without
giving my whole self to you.
He would bring you to that point. That doesn't
mean that everybody even brought to that point
(04:47):
will surrender. The Lord will do
his part. The Lord will do faithfully
do all that should be done to help
you come to the place where you would fully
surrender your life to Him.
The surrendering, the walking,
going to be up to
(05:08):
you.
Sometimes
that point comes as one of the hardest
periods of our life.
If we have, uh,
a history of stubbornness, self will,
resistance to God, we could come to a
really difficult, difficult time of
(05:31):
life through the Lord's chasten thing.
I say again, it could be one of the hardest times of our life.
And God won't hold back. He'll let that
hard time come.
Um, remember, the Lord loves us. All
he wants
(05:53):
is for all of our love first to be given to
Him. He wants to be our first
love,
nothing second best.
Now, the Scriptures teach something on this.
There are some hard words for us.
Proverbs 20 Ninese
1. He that
(06:15):
being often reproved, hardeneth his
neck shall suddenly be destroyed, and that
without remedy. There's a whole
section I'd like to read from. First chapter
of Proverbs. You'll go to that
first chapter.
It's a, uh, little longer section, so
(06:38):
it sets it in our minds, I think a little more
forcefully.
Starting at verse 23.
I'm reading from the New American Standard.
Turn to my reproof. Behold, I will
(07:00):
pour out my spirit on you.
I will make my words known to you.
Because I called you and you
refused. I stretched out my
hand and no one paid
attention. And you neglected all
my counsel and did not want my
(07:20):
reproof. I will even laugh
at your calamity. I
will mock when your dread comes.
When your dread comes like a storm,
and your calamity comes on like a
whirlwind. When distress and anguish
come on you, then they will
(07:42):
call on me.
But I will not answer.
They will seek me diligently, but they shall not find
me. Because they
hated knowledge and did not
choose the fear of the Lord,
they would not accept my counsel.
(08:04):
They spurned all my reproof.
So they shall eat of the fruit of their own
way
m and be
satiated with their own devices.
For the waywardness of the naive shall kill
them, and the
(08:27):
complacency of fools shall destroy
them. But he who
listens to me shall
live securely and shall be at
ease from the dread of evil.
Those are strong words.
What a plea from the heart of God. Did he not have
(08:49):
to deal with us that way?
But men's hearts are heart.
We can't sugarcoat what we therefore find
in these Scriptures, even dealing with David's life.
I was thinking about the example written
(09:11):
by Samuel
in these days of his
boyhood. Um,
reading along in that section, thinking about
Hannah's dedication of Samuel, I read
on and I, I saw this parallel teaching there
on the subject for this morning's 1
Samuel 2 at ver. 22.
(09:35):
This is Eli, you know, and how
we have from the Scripture that record of
the awfulness of the behavior of Eli's two
sons. Eli was a high priest, you
remember? 1
Samuel 2:22. Now, Eli
was very old, and he heard
(09:56):
all that his sons were doing to all Israel, and
how they lay with the women who
served at the doorway of the tent of meeting.
And he said to them,
why do you do such things?
The evil things that I hear from all these
people know
(10:18):
my sons. For the report is not good, which
I hear from the
Lord's people or, uh, the Lord's people
circulating. If one
man sins against another,
God will mediate for him.
But if a man sins against the Lord, who can
intercede for him?
(10:41):
But they would not listen to the voice of their Father.
For the Lord desired to put them to
death.
There it was, right at the tabernacle of
God. Open
fleshly
(11:02):
sin.
And God's
purpose was to take
their life because they would not listen.
That made me think of one John, chapter five,
the sin, um, unto death.
(11:23):
Because some people who will not heed
the counsel of God, who won't hear the rebuke of
God, are
sometimes they have to be dealt with
even by the taking of their life.
Sometimes this happens. 1 John
5, verse 16:17.
(11:45):
If anyone sees his brother
committing a sin not leading to death,
he shall ask, and God will for
him give life to those who commit
sin not leading to death.
There is a sin leading to
death. I do not say
(12:06):
that he should make request
for this. In other words,
when one goes that far, your prayer
is out of place.
All unrighteousness is sin. And there is a sin
not leading to death. I mean, don't
misunderstand. Sin is
(12:28):
all evil. All
unrighteousness is sin. But God doesn't
deal with all sin to the same
degree of chastening.
And death is that final word or act of
chastening. There are
degrees, uh, in ways in which the Lord
deals with us according to our resistance to
(12:50):
is working in our lives.
One resists to this place.
God may even take him home.
The scriptural mot. There several scriptural
examples of this But I think of the place
in 1 Corinthians 11 where there were some that were dead there at
the church of Corinth because they
(13:12):
turned the Lord's table
into an ugly
man centered
orgy. And then there
was the case also, you know, of Ananias and
Sapphia lying against the Holy Spirit
and they had to die as an
(13:33):
example to the rest of the
church. I mean there are these examples
in the Word of God, but that's the extreme.
They are exceptions. They are the extreme. And
so, uh, John gives us this last word. But now
understand, all unrighteousness is sin.
And much of course of what we do in our sinning
(13:54):
doesn' bring this penalty, uh, or
this chastening of death upon
us. But it's there. You ought to
know about it and you ought to realize that
God is not to be mocked
with your life.
Now, uh, David's life was filled with self
(14:17):
controlled efforts to meet his needs.
He wanted to be loved and he wanted to give love.
And that led him in self controlled ways to
multiply wives to himself and to commit adulteries and even to
commit murder to cover it all up.
But David wasn't a hypocrite.
(14:38):
He knew that he couldn't deal with sin in his own
sons when they followed in
his footsteps, when he hadn't fully gotten rid of it in his own
heart. You see, he was multiplying this
every day. He had. From
this chapter that follows our study,
he had at least 10 concubines,
(15:01):
seven that we could call
wives other than concubines. You know, he had
numbers here, he had
multiplied
and this was all around him. But he was not
a hypocrite. He couldn't, he couldn't deal with sin
in somebody else's life if he wasn't dealing with it fully
(15:21):
in his own. And I had preached on this
last week saying when you harbor certain sin in
your life, you weaken yourself in being able to deal with
it in the lives of those around you, even in your
own children or in your mate or your marriage. You
weaken yourself. You can't give counsel,
you know, righteously. There are some that do. But you are a
(15:42):
hypocrite. You know, you're a
hypocrite. David was not a hypocrite.
And so not being a hypocrite, he was weakened.
He was unable to really
deal with sin as he should have,
perhaps as it came in his own family, because
his own heart was not perfectly made right
(16:02):
yet in all of these things.
So God was going to have to deal harshly with
David to bring him to the end of himself.
And as these scriptures we've read say,
God will do it. He will
take us even to that place.
Remember that David's son Absalom
had killed his brother, uh,
(16:25):
Amnon. And David's captain,
Joab, had sent a
woman to tell a great tale, a great
story about things to,
um, tell David about deep
personal hurt that she had in her life. Really what her goal was,
or what Joab's goal was. To get
David to make certain
(16:47):
judgments that
sounded when David made them, and when he made them, he thought he
was talking about the woman. They sounded
like they were going to relieve that woman's problem
by forestalling judgment against
those her sons,
one in particular. But in
(17:08):
fact, once he stated that principle
that one had to be tender hearted, one had to have a place for
forgiveness, one had to keep their heart open to forgive.
One couldn't just automatically, uh, work
the judgment of God against unrighteousness. Now, it's true,
you know, God hates sin.
And we're not compromising with that teaching at all. When we
(17:30):
say that God judges sin,
he judged sin at the cross.
Christ's blood, uh, atones for
all sin
m. But for
those who won't trust him,
that atonement has no
(17:51):
benefit. They have to answer for their
own sin. He is the propitiation for our sins
and the sins of the whole world, but only for
those who trust Him. Does
that propitiation
work or serve a blessing?
Uh, it only does its work for those who
(18:12):
trust in Him. He is
a redeemer offered to the whole
world,
but he only redeems those
who would receive him, who
would trust in Him. The
love of God is as great for every one of
(18:32):
us.
Hey, but that love,
though one is loved infinitely, still isn't going to bear any fruit
unless that one trusts Christ.
(18:55):
Sure, to believed those that have believed that the
believers are most blessed to have been so loved by
God. But the unbelievers is much loved.
But sadly,
all the grace of God is frustrated.
(19:16):
All the purpose of God for redemption is set
aside.
And then when one trusts God,
he provides through what we have
in Christ our Savior, and by the work of the Spirit,
he provides a work of grace that would enable
us to walk righteously. Yet all of his children
(19:37):
sin, and they all have to be chastened. Yet we
can't ever blame God and say, well, you didn't give me enough
grace. You didn't provide enough for me.
That's a lie. The
provision is perfect.
The error isn't in God's provision.
The error is in man's appropriation.
(20:00):
And every child of God is
chastened of God as a son because
he goes his own way at some
point. And
God cries out to us as his children says, now
my children, listen, I love you.
And therefore I want you to walk in holiness. I want
you to walk in my love and be examples of
(20:22):
my love and my righteousness.
And if you don't,
I'll chasten you
now'll bring you to an end of yourselves,
even if I have to take you to the point of death
and take you out of this world for my greater
(20:42):
glory. That's basically or in someng
what the Scriptures teach on that subject.
David made his pronouncement about
really forgiveness being available for that woman's son.
And then it came around to
(21:03):
this that really it was being used as an illustration to teach
him that he ought to forgive his son Absalom and call Absalom
back.
Here's the problem, though, that without forgiveness,
without forgiveness of sin,
there can't be any restoration of fellowship. You
(21:23):
see, Absalom had run off after he
murdered Amnon. He knew good and well what
was going to happen to him if he stayed around.
And Jo Jobab was saying, david, two years have passed.
Can't you call him back? Can't there be
forgiveness?
Yes, David called him back.
(21:45):
Now, calling him back didn't give
fellowship back to them, though the two men weren't
at fellowship. Absalom came back.
Do you know? And for, uh, full two
years he was in Jerusalem and he never
saw David's face.
Wasn't because Absalom didn't want to see David's face. It's
(22:06):
because David didn't want to see Absalom's face.
He brought him geographically from
Gesher to Jerusalem,
but he was still in the wilderness
as far as David's spirit was concerned.
Do, uh, you know you can be closed in your spirit to somebody
(22:27):
even though they're in your own household,
though you may look upon their face physically every day,
if your heart doesn't look upon them
with openness of love and
fellowship, they're as far off from you as if
they had been in a wilderness,
(22:47):
because you really have put them in a wilderness of
spirit.
Absalom was there in Jerusalem, but he was not in
fellowship with his Father. And the reason is
because you can't have fellowship without
forgiveness. You've got to have
cleansing. You've got to give forgiveness for the
sin you've got to receive forgiveness of
(23:10):
sin for there to be fellowship, for there to be
restoration. David
had called his son back, but he had
not given forgiveness.
M. Now,
Absalom wasn't happy with the situation, so he
(23:31):
forced things. Have you ever forced
things? No, I'm sure not.
If things don't work out the way you want them to,
does your mind ever start turning ideas
over on how you can make them happen?
Well, Absalom sent to Joab, he thought, now, uh, I'm going to have
(23:52):
Joab um go and plead my case to my father and ask my
father to let me see his face. He sent to
Joab. Joab wouldn't respond.
Well, you know, try
it again. So he sent a second time to Joab. Joab would
not respond. Absalom
says, I, he said to himself, I'm going to make this man
(24:13):
respond to me. Now,
Absalom had a piece of land that was right
next to a piece of land owned by Joab.
So Absalom had a plan. He told his servants,
go set Joab's
field on fire. He had a
grain crop that was about ready to come in. It must have been
(24:35):
dry. So it was near harvest time.
And the servants obeyed, and
they went and set Joab's field on fire.
That got Joab moving.
You touch a man in his pocketbook,
you might get him to jump.
(24:55):
I said might. I didn't say you would, but you could. And
it works for most. And
Joab used this device of the flesh. He got.
He got at. I mean, uh,
Absalom used this. He got it, Joyab, where it hurt,
in his pocketbook. And Joyab, um, got
right over to Absalom's house, and he said, what have you
(25:16):
done? Why have you had your servants set my field on
fire? And
Absalom told him. He said, because
I wanted to see you and have you bring a
message to my father and have my father
invite me to come and see his face. I wanted
to have fellowship restored with my father.
(25:37):
I want you to come to my father, bring my message.
I want you to be my intermediary.
Well, Joyd knew that all the time.
He just didn't want to put himself in the place to have to do
it. Now he was put in the place. Now the
message was given to him. So what was he going to do?
Well, he went to David
(25:58):
and he said, well, David, why
don't you have Absalom
appear before you? It's been two years he's been here in
Jerusalem. You haven't let him come to your
presence being pressured
by Joab. M.
And it was a good pressure.
(26:22):
He brought Absalom before him.
Now, wait a minute. I want to read this.
In chapter 14 ATR, right near the end of
the chapter, at verse 33,
we'll see what the Scriptures say about this little
time when Joab was before the king.
(26:42):
So when Joab came to the king and told him,
he called for Absalom.
See, that's how it happened. Now, the last sentence of verse
33. Thus he came to the king and
prostrated himself on his face to the ground before the
king. And the king kissed Absalom. Now, you
know the kiss is an expression of
(27:03):
love. It shouldn't be turned into something just mere
formal, you know, like a
cold. How, um, are you?
Everything we say and do, we should mean
good to see you. You should say that because you really
are happy to see somebody. Not because it's a
(27:24):
courteous social thing to say, but because from your
heart you can say it with truth.
David kissed Absalom. Was
that enough?
Well, does this restore
fellowship? If there's
forgiveness there
(27:44):
on David's part, and if
Absalom receives that forgiveness, and if Absalom is
turned from his sin and hating his sin, is
truly seeking that forgiveness, and if David is giving that
forgiveness, we have a restoration going on
here. We have a father and son coming back together.
The question is, is sin fully
cleansed? Is it turned from?
(28:06):
Is it hated?
All the outward evidences are there.
Excuse me. How do we know whether sin
has been totally dealt with?
We know because we read the rest of the story.
Remember that fellowship requires two to
(28:27):
be righteous with one
another. Two have to
be righteous, clean from any sin against each
other. And as far as
that goes, if righteousness is going to work in
a relationship and we're talking about the future from that point
on, in all future treatment that one has of
the other, then any self serving purpose is
(28:50):
going to have to be set aside. Anything that one of those two
people have that is serving of self and
against the other is going to have to be set aside. So if
fellowship has been restored here, then we're going to have to look
at the life of David and the life of Absalom, and we're going
to see that each of them, uh, has set self
serving purpose aside and is truly
(29:10):
living openly in truth and righteousness and in
love with one another. Is that the story?
No, no. In
fact, it's just the reverse.
The story goes on that
Absalom was not
seeking a righteous restoration
(29:32):
of fellowship. He was, in fact, seeking,
uh, a relationship with his father that would
let him do his own will, have
his own glory, and serve his own
desires.
And the story that follows is really horrible.
I want to tell you ahead of time now. What
(29:55):
happens, as awful as it is,
was going to be used by God
to do a wonderful thing.
He was going to use this
time here with Absalom and the events that came out of
it to discipline David
more harshly than David had ever been disciplined in
(30:15):
his whole life. Up to this point, from his youth to this time
in his manhood, he has never been disciplined the way he's going to
be disciplined now. And I'm
saying even beyond the time when the baby
died that he had, uh, uh, caused
to be conceived with Bathsheba and all that
horrible discipline of God, this is going to be
more harsh than the loss of that one life,
(30:41):
more harsh than David has ever suffered any
discipline before. Now, I don't speak of the
trials that came upon him when he walked in righteousness
and Saul unjustly brought trials
on him. I'm talking about the discipline of God. Because of sin
in his life, things don't
get easier, they get harder because his
(31:01):
heart is not yet made perfect with the
Lord.
Why? Well, the
discipline of the Lord is that we might walk is
brought in our lives as Hebrews 12 against says, that we
might walk in righteousness or in holiness so that the
Lord could draw us close to himself. It's the
(31:23):
same with any parent that loves his child. Why do you discipline
your child? Because you love them,
because you want what's best for them.
Because you want to rid them from the things in their
lives that hurt them. And you want. I think
you want more than that. I do. As a father. Because
you want to draw them closer to you. You want to
(31:44):
draw them into your love fellowship.
I know to the child, it sounds often like you're just trying
to deal with the hurtful things in them.
And you're focused sometimes on that, and you're
forced to focus on that because that's where their minds, hearts
and activity is. But in reality, the loving
parent really hungers for the fellowship
(32:05):
of love with that, uh, child. They want to bring that child into the
closest possible relationship.
That's what God wants with us.
What Absalom did
was that he deceived the people of Israel.
(32:26):
How do he do that? Well, the story in
chapter 15, um,
simply, uh. What. I'm not going to go into details of it.
It's really a fantastic
plan for promoting Oneself. I
think any politician could read 2nd Samuel 15
and have anything
(32:48):
here that any, uh, fancy PR man could ever
give him.
You know, politics and you know how it works. And you should know how this
works. What Absalom
did was he championed every
cause of anybody that came to him.
He was for them. Man had
(33:09):
a complaint, he was for that man. The other guy came with the same
complaint he was for him. Of course, he didn't let him hear, you
know, to be careful not to say
things you said to people in front of one another. But he was
for everybody. He was everybod's
friend.
Great for politics because you win votes that way.
(33:31):
And that's what he was doing. He was politicking.
He was trying to flatter. He was a back
patter. I hope
you've learned in your life not to really
respect that kind of talk or that kind of person.
It just goes around saying things
(33:52):
because they're appreciated.
Uh, you're a wonderful person. I've never met somebody like
you. You're beautiful, handsome,
strong, wise, intelligent.
My, you're rich. Beyond
my understanding of wealth. Uh, you're so wise. You have
such understanding, such knowledge.
(34:15):
Somewhere along that list, you should start to see through
it. You know, it's like as fels either
deluded or, you know,
naive or something.
I mean, somewhere you should pick up on flattery.
Unless you really, in your spirit,
(34:38):
want to be elevated.
And because this worked in Israel, this is something
we know now about the hearts of the people of Israel,
that they wanted to be elevated in
their hearts. And I
suspect that the world is not too different today.
That's why it still works today.
(35:02):
So people started lining up behind Absalom. They
started thinking, my Absalom's the one that ought to be the
king.
And, uh, I want to read something to you and show you
how low this whole program got. Because
Absalom even came to the place where he used God to
further his own purposes. Verse
(35:23):
7 of chapter 15. Now, it
came about at the end of I'm going to read
the Word for in there some ancient manuscripts do,
four years that Absalom said to the king,
please let me go and pay my vow, which I have
vowed to the Lord in Hebron.
Now here is his vow for your servant. Vow to vow. While
(35:45):
I was living at Gesher in Aram,
saying, uh, here is his vow. If the Lord
shall indeed bring me back to Jerusalem, then
I will serve the Lord.
What did you say? Im telling you that this
man came to his father and said, do you know I made a
promise to God when I was out there in
(36:06):
Gesher, when you didn't want me to come home to
Jerusalem. I made a promise to God that if
someday, somehow, God would bring me back
to Jerusalem, I would serve the Lord the rest of
my life.
Sounds like a foxhole conversion, doesn't it?
Oh, God, get me out of here, and I'll serve you
(36:27):
all my life. You ever heard that kind of prayer?
I think that a lot of people have
prayed that kind of prayer.
But the sad thing is very often that if all they're
oriented to is their problem, that when they get out of their problem,
they forget their prayer.
(36:49):
I don't know if Absalom ever prayed that prayer or
ever really meant it at all, even in a moment.
But the truth of the matter is he's using
a, uh, reference to a vow to God,
the intention to live for God with his whole life
as David, uh, being the grounds for David to let him
go to Hebron. And it's a lie.
(37:11):
He's using God.
Don't play this game of saying, oh,
boy, you know, I promised the Lord such and
such and such and such, and that's why I'm doing this
fleshly thing I'm doing. I mean, you
can't use God as grounds for getting your
own way.
(37:32):
Don't deceive yourself, certainly even in trying to deceive
others. But Absalom got permission
from David, and off he went to Hebron, supposedly
to pay his vow to God, when in
fact he was going to Hebron to live there
so he could set up his own kingdom,
so he could use it as his base to set up his own
(37:52):
kingdom, let it be his capital, until one
day he could get into Jerusalem. It was a
lie. He even used God for his
purpose. In other words, he used every
man and woman that ever came to him. He used them for his
purpose. He used God for his
purpose.
(38:15):
Not the kind of man that you could trust.
But David didn't see any of this until it finally was told
to him. And so in, uh,
chap. 15 at ver. 13,
we have what I call a first blow of the discipline
of God. And it's
simply this that David had to flee from
(38:37):
Jerusalem because so many people had
gone over to Absalom. And when the
word came to David, O, the world, you know, was gone.
After Absalom, he said, well, we better leave Jerusalem
then. And so the first blow came, and the
only ones he Left behind
were 10 concupines to
keep the house. He had faithful
(38:59):
followers There were
some of the different. The aliens
really, that were among the people of Israel. In verse 18,
you see the kathites and the
Peathites and
theite Getites.
Gitttites. Am I got it right? I think
it'gittotites.
(39:21):
And there were the 600 men that had been with him, you know, all
the time, all the way back from the time he was down there,
uh, in the suburb of Gatt.
Well, all these
faithful people, and they followed David
right along. And in fact, there was a
man,
(39:42):
um,
named Itai
over him in verse 21. And there's
a famous statement from this one man I
think is worth reading. You might want to remember where this is in the
word of God, because David said, look,
you're an alien. Why don't you go back? You're not one of us.
(40:02):
You don't have to suffer in this whole
ordeal. Here's what this man Ita I
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.
(40:23):
I wonder if you could say that to the Lord Jesus,
Lord, wherever,
wherever you are, wherever you lead,
whether it means even to death,
I'll follow you.
That's what the Lord asks. So this
man becomes an example
(40:45):
of one of total
faithfulness.
And so off they went toward the wilderness.
Verse 23, you see, all they went
off the way of the wilderness is that verse
says toward the wilderness.
And David, uh, had deep
(41:08):
spiritual understanding. It's still with him here.
You can't use God as a rubber stamp.
David knew that. And two of the priests had brought
the Ark of the Covenant along. And
David spiritually understood that you can't just bring
the Ark of the Covenant along. Think God is going to be with
you simply because you have the box.
(41:31):
He told these men, take the Ark back
to Jerusalem,
because if God is with me, he'll
bring me again to that city, and I'll be able to look at
that Ark again. But if God
isn't with me,
well,
(41:54):
I'll leave things in the hands of the Lord. But he
knew this, that carrying along the
Ark wasn't some magic
potion. You don't want to
put, uh, you know, a God in a box and think you
can use him for your own purposes.
Be careful. David was
wise, spiritually wise.
(42:16):
I know he has the scars of sin in his life,
and I know he's going to be terribly disciplined here. But. But I also want
to tell you he was not a hypocrite. And he
was spiritually wise.
He also was humble. At verse
30 as he went.
I think you should see the picture of David and his going.
(42:39):
Number one, he was weeping.
And number two,
showing this, this admission of weakness,
he had his head covered.
And number three, he was barefooted.
(43:03):
And he was justmitting and showing his submission
to God. And all of that humility.
Humility. David was
humbling himself before God. He
was recognizing
that God's counsel was the only counsel of
wisdom. And that's what he says in verse 31
(43:23):
here. Now someone,
um,
told um, David saying Ahithophel is among the
conspirators with Absalom. And David said, O Lord,
I pray, make the council of Ahithophel foolishness.
See, Ahithophel was back there going to give counsel to
Absalom. So how does David prayse? He said, the Lord
(43:45):
make Ahithophel's counsel foolishness.
David knew that the counsel of the
Lord was the only counsel that should be followed.
He was
humble,
he was wise. He was not a hypocrite.
(44:06):
And he depended on the counsel of God only.
So what did he do? I, uh, guess you could
say this is an application of what the Lord Jesus called the wisdom of
a serpent. But what he did was
put a spy in Absalom's camp
(44:26):
and he sent Huosai back there. And he really put him
there to confuse the Hitophell'council and it just
the wisdom of God, I think that
he's wise in the Lord. When he sends this spy back
there, he says, you go back there and you pretend to
be Absalom's, uh, loyal
follower. And when you know,
uh, Ahithophel gives his
(44:48):
counsel, you confuse it.
Now the second blow for the discipline of
God against David
was when, remember
Mephibosheh, that man lame
on both his feet. Remember when David blessed him
and let him eat at table, at his table
(45:10):
all the days of his life, he rather than kill him,
he was a last, uh, direct descendant of
Jonathan. Well, he had a servant named
Zeba. And Zeba was commissioned by
David, commanded by David to watch over the
lands and take care of the lands. Well Zea coveted
those lands for himself. And now
with David running out of the city, Zeba shows up on
(45:33):
the scene with animals laden
with good, uh, things to eat
for the people as they go on their way.
And David says, oh my, how
come you're here? Uh, where's your m. Master
O. He basically says this, oh, uh,
he stayed back. He's given his allegiance to
(45:53):
Absalom. And David said,
oh well, okay then every thing that
belongs to him you can have all of his lands, all of
his possessions, they're now yours.
You see, when people are in
trouble, our flesh is so quick
to look for an opportunity to get something for
(46:13):
ourselves. Zeba is an illustration of somebody who
takes advantage of the moment in a self
serving way without any concern, uses
lie, deceit, know, doesn't have any
concern for anyone else. Especially that helpless lame
man that couldn't leave the city
without the very animals that this man used
(46:34):
to carry these things to David and to make his
pretense. And
so he cast Mephibosheh in such an evil role, when
in fact Mephibosheh was not. Mephiboshev
was a faithful servant of
David and he remains such.
It says that Mephiboshe didn't take
(46:54):
care of his feet. Now remember, he's lame on both his
feet. No doubt he had
to bathe them and keep them. He
didn't trim his mustache.
All the days that David was gone.
He didn't care for himself and keep himself up,
so to speak. He'd mourn for David's
absence. Mephibeshhev was a man of pure
(47:16):
heart. But there are some people that look for
self advantage and that
God used to discipline David, even bringing him
under that deception. The third blow of
discipline was from uh,
a man who came along and cursed David.
Here it's in chapter 15, I'm sorry, 16.
(47:37):
And it's uh, verses five through eight
when Sheimi that comes along and
curses David. And
he threw stones at him, can you
imagine, he's throwing stones at David and saying
curses on you. Curses. And
why? Because of all the blood that David had
shed of the house of Saul. Because he
(47:59):
says, you're a bloody man. And he was a bloody
man. And he had slain
many in the house of Saul in that time
when there was that attrition, you know,
of the decrease of Saul's
family and the increase of David's followers.
(48:20):
So one stepp forward and said, well let me cut his head
off. And Davis said, no,
no, I don't want you to cut his head off.
Because this could be from the
Lord. It
could be from the Lord.
I won't let you do that. In
(48:42):
fact he says in verse 11, for the Lord has
told him,
in other words, he was not only
willing, he was wise, he
was humble,
but he was also willing to be rebuked.
But in this time of
(49:02):
discipline he was deceived,
yes, but he was deceived
looking for pure hearts in
others. That's how Zebra got in.
He was wise in the Lord and sending the spy
into Absalom's camp. But he was also a, uh, man
here, even under the hand of discipline, who was willing
(49:22):
to be disciplined. If
God sent it, he was going to receive it.
And then the fourth blow came.
And that came as a fulfillment of the
prophecy that'back there in chapter 12. And you don't have to
turn to it. I want you to. I just want you to know. It's back in
1211 when he is s being
rebuked for the sin of his adulteries
(49:45):
with Bathsheba. And you know, Nathan, the
prophet comes and points his finger at him and tells him he's
the man. And then he pronounces a
great judgment on him. He said, the time is going
to come when one of your own
family is going to, uh,
lay openly before the sun,
right out in the sunshine, is going to lay with
(50:08):
your wives.
And that's what happened.
Terrible discipline. He left those 10 concubines
behind. And Ahithophel gave
counsel and said, oh, the way to show you
have a strength and uh,
you, uh, that you truly are alienated from your
(50:29):
father. So that the cord is cut. And people
can be very sure, you know, that they're not going to
see a, uh, compromise here, that you're truly your own
man and you're against David. You
should put those women
up on the rooftop and you should go right into
them in front of all of Israel. See,
(50:50):
the house of the king was on a hillside. And
what they did, they put a tent up on top of the roof of the king's
house. And, uh, Absalom went
into the 10 women
and violated him.
And that struck, you see, at the very core
of those things that David had tried to get to
(51:11):
him, to meet his own needs, under his own
power. Multiplication of
wives and
concubines.
The discipline of God hit him so hard.
And yet he waited,
(51:32):
yielded, willing to be disciplined,
not rebellious.
And eventually God used
all that discipline and
David's submission to it
to show Absalom's sinful
heart,
(51:54):
to cast Absalom out, although it
had to be in a, uh, terrible way, and brought him about
ultimately, by Absalom's death,
he used all of that to
draw David one step closer
to himself, to God's heart.
(52:14):
To.
Cause David to cast himself upon the
Lord, the
one thing that God had cried out for, for
David from the time of his youth.
Lastly, people, we'll go into the details of that somewhat
again.
But I think the
(52:35):
story, the lesson for us, and it's
so sharp a lesson.
The Lord wants us to walk with him. He
wants us to fellowship with him in love, but in
righteousness. And he doesnt want us to
reserve things to ourselves.
He'looking for a tender heart.
(52:56):
He'looking for a contrite heart,
a broken heart. But hes looking for a humble heart.
He's looking for one looking to his counsels and
wisdom, and one that's willing to be shown where he's
wrong. And one that's not
a hypocrite, but looking for
purity in the hearts of others.
(53:17):
And that's what David was.
And therefore he could see some of his own sin
we could wish he would have broken fully and
absolutely, even in this inst. But
isn't it amazing that God is so patient
with us? And even with this man, after
this great discipline, there was still a
(53:38):
work to be done in David.
Never. See that little pin.
Uh, don't be,
um, disappointed with me or
something like that. God has not finished with me yet.
(53:59):
Do you know when the Lord is going to be finished with you?
When he says, come up hither
and he will be finished with you. Until
then, the Holy Spirit of God is
going to lead and teach and convict and cleanse
as you let him.
(54:22):
And make you more like your Savior.
Because your Lord loves you enough
to want to do that work until you
conform to the image of his son.
I speak to you as God's children.
He loves you that much. Lets
pray. Lord Jesus, thank you for
(54:45):
your love for us.
Not only, Lord have you died that we might be
given salvation in the sense of a, uh, present
possession, but
you have died that we might have salvation as a
living experience,
outworking it in us and through us by the Holy
Spirit of God to bring us into
(55:08):
that sweet moment by moment fellowship with
you that you desire.
Thank you for the disciplines of your hand.
Thank you for the working of the Spirit of
God to teach
those that would be taught to
lead those that would be led
(55:30):
to give wisdom. Where there are those
that will yield to your counsels, to those
that will love your word,
and to bless those that would receive the
blessing.
And we love you for that.
(55:51):
And we ask that you might do a fuller work in us
today and draw us
close. Lord, we could say,
we'll follow you,
even if it means to death.
I pray everyone here might be able to say that in
their heart, you are my Lord.
(56:15):
I cannot separate myself from you.
I will follow you as My Lord, until
death
in Jesus name, amen.
All right, there we go. One year
(56:36):
anniversary of the Legacy Bible
Podcast. So many more years to
come. At least I hope so.
Okay, so if you want to like have more information about
the podcast, you can go to the website which
is
www.legacybiblepodcast.com.
(56:56):
you could check that out. There's some, um,
resources up there, some um,
transcripts. And although him you may be a
little bit behind on a transcripts there, you
haven uh, haven't put any up there
for a while because my sister's been sick. But
we re work, we're working on it. So
go there and check it out. Pl you can listen to, listen
(57:19):
to the podcast there also. You
so inclined. And I want you
to know about the church's website.
They were having their uh, their website updated because
it hasn't been updated in a long time.
So you should check it out. And it
is
fbcjoliet.com
(57:41):
so fbcjoliet.com
is where they're at. I know they were updating it and they're
gonna put some more transcripts up there and I think there's
some, some more audio files up there so you can
listen to those there. If you want more,
more of Pastor rains,
you can listen and read up at
(58:01):
the church's, uh, website
or you can just listen on my website, which
is legacy
biblepodcast.com. so
thank you for listening. Come back next
week or beginning uh, our new
year actually. Well, a
new podcast year, not the actual
(58:23):
chronological new year because it's going to be
February already. But we re
starting the second year of the Legacy Bible podcast.
So come on back. We'll be glad to have
you bring your friends, have them
listened too. So thank you for
listening. And you know what I always say,
uh, have a great day. See you
(58:46):
next time.
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