Audio Transcript
This week we’re speaking parenting. A mother’s function in elevating boys — that was Monday, in episode 2045. And at present, Pastor John, as I look forward in our Navigators Bible Studying Plan, developing on the docket right here between Might 20 and June 2, we’re about to come across three lengthy, detailed, and associated tales of revolt. Kids who rebelled. I’m considering of Absalom, Sheba, and Adonijah.
On this trio of rebels, again in 2018, in a tweet you mentioned to folks: “Learn to your kids the tales of the revolt of Absalom towards David (in 2 Samuel 15:1–18:33) and the revolt of Sheba (in 2 Samuel 20:1–26) and the revolt of Adonijah (in 1 Kings 1:1–2:25). Then look them within the eye and say: ‘Rebel towards the Lord’s anointed by no means, by no means, by no means succeeds.’” These three lengthy tales are loaded with cautionary particulars. Are you able to level out a few issues that strike you that folks would press house to their kids in such a studying? And I presume the “Lord’s anointed” right here you discuss with in your tweet is Christ himself — is that right? What different classes stand out as you put together us to learn these sections for ourselves and to utilize them in our properties?
I wrote that tweet as a result of it appears so painfully apparent to me that younger folks — and I suppose, as properly, outdated folks — must be warned to not go down a path that has proved over and over to be a path of self-destruction. Younger folks don’t all the time see the end result of a path that they’re on. They must be warned. They could not heed the warning — these three within the story definitely didn’t — however they could. And whether or not they do or not, it’s the dad and mom’ God-given obligation to sound biblical warnings for his or her kids.
Three Failed Rebellions
I used to be struck on this passage as I used to be studying via it, like I all the time do yearly. One after the opposite, rebellions arose towards King David. David is the Lord’s anointed. How he pertains to Christ we’ll get to in only a second, however God has chosen David to be king over his folks. Samuel had anointed him king, and God had clearly warned in Psalm 2 what a silly and lethal factor it’s to plot towards the Lord’s anointed. It’s completely futile. The Lord sits in heaven and laughs.
Nonetheless, Absalom (David’s son), Sheba (who’s known as a “nugatory fellow” from the tribe of Benjamin), Adonijah (David’s son born subsequent after Absalom) — one after the opposite, these three males raised their hand in revolt towards the Lord’s anointed, and each certainly one of them is killed due to it.
Absalom steals the hearts of the lads of Israel proper underneath David’s nostril by promising them higher justice than David was giving them. And he leads a revolt and winds up along with his lovely head of hair caught in a tree, and he’s dangling there and speared to loss of life by Joab’s males.
Sheba tries to use a division between the ten tribes and Judah, who’re squabbling over who will get to carry David again after the triumphs over Absalom, and he tries to guide a revolt by mobilizing these ten tribes towards Judah and David. However he finally ends up along with his head chopped off (by a clever girl within the metropolis of Abel) and thrown over the wall to Joab.
“We are able to by no means use the sins of our dad and mom to excuse our personal sins.”
After which Adonijah tries to use David’s outdated age to develop into king as a substitute of his father’s selection — Solomon, his brother — recruiting even Joab now to change sides. And each of them, Joab and Adonijah, die. So it’s not a really propitious prospect for anyone who lifts his palms towards the Lord’s anointed.
Listed here are a number of classes that I see in these tales, and possibly some extra particulars can come out as I give the teachings.
1. Prophesied sin doesn’t excuse sin.
First, a prophecy of distress and battle in a household doesn’t excuse those that prompted the distress and the battle. David started his reign with adultery with Bathsheba, murdering Uriah, her husband. Nathan the prophet says to David, “Now subsequently the sword shall by no means depart from your own home, as a result of you could have despised me and have taken the spouse of Uriah the Hittite to be your spouse” (2 Samuel 12:10).
So, all these rebellions from his kids and others are prophesied as a part of the implications of David’s sin. However there’s not a touch within the tales that Absalom and Sheba and Adonijah are excused for his or her wickedness and their revolt due to this prophecy. Prophesied sin doesn’t excuse the sinner. That’s lesson primary.
2. Failed parenting doesn’t excuse sin.
Second — and a really related level, however possibly one that may be felt at present by modern folks much more than that one — younger folks want to listen to this: Failed parenting doesn’t excuse the sin of the kids. We are able to by no means use the sins of our dad and mom to excuse our personal sins. We’re answerable for ourselves no matter our backgrounds. We will likely be held accountable for our personal sinful actions, and the failures of our dad and mom won’t take away our guilt.
First Kings 1:6 says, “[David] had by no means at any time displeased [Adonijah] by asking, ‘Why have you ever performed thus and so?’” That is an indictment of David’s sinful doting on his sons, a failure to self-discipline. And it appears to me that he handled Absalom in the identical means as Adonijah as a result of, close to the top, his leniency towards Absalom’s revolt virtually value him his kingdom. Nonetheless, regardless of this parental failure, each Absalom and Adonijah are answerable for their very own rebellious attitudes and their sins. They will’t blame it on their dad’s failures.
3. Rebel arises from excessive and low locations.
Third lesson: Rebel can come up from a way of privilege and entitlement, and it will probably come up from a way of worthlessness that seeks to reap the benefits of a scenario and rise to energy.
Absalom and Adonijah had been each extremely privileged, not solely as a result of they had been the sons of the king, however as a result of each of them had been explicitly mentioned to be very good-looking. The writer goes out of his approach to make the purpose that they had been good-looking, well-liked, well-connected. Sheba was a no one. He’s known as “a nugatory man” (2 Samuel 20:1). He hadn’t made something of his life. Absalom and Adonijah used their privilege to achieve energy and overthrow their father; Sheba shrewdly took benefit of a brewing battle between the king’s topics.
However in each instances, whether or not from privilege or poverty, they failed. The purpose is that poverty and energy, excessive place and low place, being someone and being no one, is not any justification for revolt towards the Lord’s anointed. Sin lurks within the low; sin lurks within the excessive. So, beware, younger folks, that you possibly can justify a revolt towards the Lord’s anointed by both one.
4. Self-exaltation ends in destruction.
Fourth, “Whoever exalts himself will likely be humbled, and whoever humbles himself will likely be exalted” (Matthew 23:12) — the phrases of Jesus. The start of Adonijah’s story makes specific the basis of the issue. It goes like this: “Now Adonijah the son of Haggith exalted himself, saying, ‘I will likely be king’” (1 Kings 1:5). And the identical is true of Absalom and Sheba. That is the nice sin, the deep, deep sin of all kids and all dad and mom: a craving to be seen as nice, a craving to be seen as highly effective or lovely or sensible or cool or good-looking or gutsy or wealthy, one way or the other to be seen higher than others. “I need to be higher” — just like the apostles squabbled with one another to see who was the best.
“Rebel towards the Lord’s anointed completely can’t succeed.”
The Previous Testomony abounds with tales like these, designed to make Jesus’s level: “Whoever exalts himself will likely be humbled, and whoever humbles himself will likely be exalted” (Matthew 23:12). Noël and I are studying Isaiah proper now. We simply learn final night time about these oracles over and over in Isaiah. The evil that God is punishing among the many nations is pleasure, pleasure, pleasure — self-exaltation.
Undergo the Anointed One
So, lastly, we should always say that sure, David, the Lord’s anointed, was a sort of Jesus Christ, a foreshadowing of King Jesus. Christ is the son of David. Christ is the ultimate Anointed One. “Christ” (Christos) means “anointed.” And from these tales, we should always warn our youngsters — certainly, warn ourselves — that revolt towards the Lord’s anointed, David or Christ, completely can’t succeed. However to undergo him and see him as the nice and wonderful and clever and robust and simply and gracious King that he’s would fulfill our souls endlessly.
The glitzy promise of self-exaltation is a mirage, younger folks; it’s a mirage. Don’t go the best way of Absalom or Sheba or Adonijah. It can’t succeed.
