Hey everybody. Welcome back to another edition of the Daily Bible Podcast. What's happening? It is Thursday, and so we had youth last night. Pastor Rod, how much more do you got in the gospel, Matthew? Let's see. Today is, I think four or five weeks. Okay. I, yeah we're gonna combine a couple of them because we got VBS, but we're not gonna finish it as soon as we had hoped. But we are gonna, we are gonna finish it. And it's, we're doing a chapter a week in preparation for the minor prophets this summer. It's a challenge to say the least. Trying to take a whole chapter of a gospel and compress it into 30 minutes, 35 minutes or so, is, let's just call it a challenge. So what's the, afterwards? What's next? TBD. I don't know that book. Yeah, that's that's one of the books that we don't talk about too much. They found it in the Dead Sea scroll case, though. First opinions. Yeah. We're we're working on the calendar right now. Cool. But we're probably also gonna be making something of a transition this coming summer and fall. More on that soon enough hook. That is a hook. That's a meaty hook. Yeah, it is. Yeah. It's a big one. You're just gonna have to sit on that one, folks. Yep. Yeah. Good. My students. That I have involved in student ministry. My, my two oldest, they love it. It's something they look forward to. And now that Josh is driving, we love it too. You guys get to go to your own Blue Cantina or Blue Goose? Yeah. Your gray goose. Your Gray Goose restaurant. No, not Gray Goose. That's vodka. Is that the connection that you've made? Is that why you going alcohol on that? It must have been. That's gotta be it. It's just a Mexican food restaurant. Their chips and salsa amazing. Do they? Yeah. Homemade tortillas. So good in store. And the margaritas. Tell me about those. Th those, We were just talking about searchability on our podcast a second ago, and here you're throwing out words like mar margaritas and Gregory's vodka. Oh, that might put us up in the rankings, honestly. Might Well, talking about Nintendo Switch, these two pastors talking Yeah. Throwing Nintendo Switch, throwing vodka. We might do. Okay. Anyways, yeah. We're not young. Restless and reformed we're just reformed. Yeah, true. Not, we can't even sit young anymore, can we? Nope. Nope. Yeah. Anyways hey, let's get into our text for today. It's hard to be super lighthearted about what we're reading in two Samuel 13 through 15, but remember, it's important to set the stage on this, that this is all connected back to David's sin. That what we're reading here as we read through this, it's hard. Is it David's fault, pastor Rod, answer that question for us. Is this David's fault? Is this David's fault, the sin of two Samuel 13, 14, 15. This situation with Amon and Tamar that we're about to get into. Yes. In an ultimate sense. And actually I, yeah, I could draw more than one line. I could say, yes, God's divine judgment is what? Prompted this, but I could also say David's absenteeism. Yeah. Not stepping in when he should have also did this, his unwillingness to confront Absalom also did this. His unwillingness to confront Amon did. I mean there's just, yes, there's a ton of lines. Yeah. So it is God's judgment first and foremost. It is God's response to David's initial symbol that she but on top of that, there's David's negligence, which also feeds into this. And I have a lot of bad things to say about David, but man, I also have some really sweet things to say about him as well. Yeah, I remember one of the consequences that, that God doled out to David was that the sword would never depart from his house. Yep. And we're gonna see that in, in action here. So sad. The story is and here's the thing, y'all, there's a word that is used in our culture for what takes place between Amon and Tamar. I'm gonna use the word violate. And and that's the word that's gonna stand in for the other word that's a little bit. More rated R than PG here. But this is a bad situation in second. Second Samuel 13 relationships. Let's talk relationships really quick here. Amon and Tamar are half brother and half sister. Amon or Tamar and Absalom are fully related, fully blood. And so same mom, same dad, David. Dad, same mom. So this is a half sibling relationship. So we might ask, okay, does that make this okay? And the answer is no. In fact, let's set the stage. So Amon has eyes for his half-sister at Tamar. And rather than saying, this is wrong I'm gonna discipline my mind and my affections not to go there. He allows a quote unquote friend of his Jonah Dab, who's one of the most despicable figures in all of the Bible. It's crafty to persuade him to. Basically trick Tamar into being alone with him. At that point, Amon takes Tamar and violates her. But in, in the process of all this, Tamar pleads with her brother in verse 12 and know my brother. Do not violate me for such a thing as not done in Israel. Do not do this outrageous thing. Okay? It's not done in Israel. This goes back to the fact that. That Tamar knew the law, she knew the Bible. Amon probably did too at this point. But in Leviticus 18, nine, it says, you shall not uncover the nakedness of your sister, your father's daughter, or your mother's daughter, whether brought up in the family or in another home. So there we have, it doesn't matter that they were half siblings there, there's not some qualification that this was, okay. This is prohibited. This is against the law of God given in Leviticus 18 verse nine. So this is wrong. What he's about to do here, it doesn't matter that they're half siblings at all. Not that any of you are out there wondering if it's okay in that regard. Anyways, here's the takeaway here. 'cause, because Amon, you probably know the story of chapter 13, takes her and violates her and then. It says afterwards hates her and kicks her out. And she is sent away ashamed. And she even has the signs of being a virgin, which is the long sleeves of her rope, which she has to tear off as she goes back to her home. Absalom, her brother, finds out about this, takes her into care for her because really no one else was going to take her and no one else was gonna marry her at this point. So she was condemned to be essentially a widow even though she's not a widow, she's condemned to, to singleness for the rest of her life, bearing this shame that she had. But here's the thing to note here. I want you to see the power of lust in two Samuel 13. Lust is often stronger than reason and consumes the sinner with selfishness that makes the sinner unconcerned about the. Others that are gonna be hurt in the process of satisfying and gratifying their own lusts, or even just the consequences in general, or even consequences in general. 'cause you'll notice here first he had an opportunity to tell to Jonah Daab, you're a despicable human being. No, he didn't. Why? Because again he's giving himself over to his lust. Then second, he has the opportunity here to listen to. To, to Tamar, as Tamar is saying, no as Tamar is saying, this is a wrong thing to do in fact, even when she says speak to the king, he will not withhold me from you. Now, David was not gonna give Tamar to Amon in any conceivable situation because it was against the law, but. But Tamar's just trying to get away at this point. But Amon won't even listen when confronted with the word of God. He's not willing to listen to reason. He's not willing to be confronted with the word of God, saying, Hey, this is a wrong thing. Don't do this. This is against the law. And again, that goes back to the power of lust. And so we need to be careful about that and this used to be something that was reserved for. High school boys groups that when they would split up, it was the girls go talk about mi modesty and guys, you come over here, we're gonna talk about lust. But in today's society and culture, this is no longer a and not that it was at that point either, but this is no longer a one gender issue. This is something that's broad. I. And this is something that is, is out there for all kinds of different access points. And lemme give you a caveat right now, parents this may be a good time to, to push, pause and pick this up without your, the ears of your little ones around. So I'm just gonna give you a second to do that here because I wanna press in a little bit here so press pause. Okay. And then we're gonna count down. 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. Okay. I wanna get in our kitchen a little bit. Obviously the big ticket item when it comes to lust is pornography. And that is is super abundant in our society and our culture. It's a click away. It's an apple away. It's just readily available anywhere that you desire to, to find it. The other thing that is rising in popularity and that's out there is the. The erotic literature that's out there, these books that are very popular, especially among women. And they will read them and they'll post about them on Instagram and everything else. And it's these fairytale figures and so it divorces you from reality. And that's the thing that our lust so often does, is it takes us out of reality and takes us into the realm of the fantasy and makes it seem like it's no big deal because it's not anything that's. That's actually happening in person. And yet Paul says that when we give into lust, we're sinning against our own flesh and blood, our own bodies. And we're, he even talks about in one Corinthians chapter six that we're marrying, that we're bringing Christ, we're bringing the spirit into that act of, he's talking about being with a prostitute, but I think we can extend it when Jesus, in the Sermon on the Mount compares our. Our lust to the physical act itself there. That this is an area that as the church we can't give room to. There is not a territory of respectable lust in the church. There's not a, it's okay for me to have this closet over here that nobody else knows about. And church, men and women everybody I'm talking to here within your shot of this is something that, that's, it's sin that's gotta be killed at the root and it cannot be entertained. We can't have a little bit and think it's no big deal. We've gotta get this out. It's insidious, it's horrible. And it is all consuming. And if you give it a foothold, it will take everything and everything from you in the process. Yeah. And just to offer one quick verse on this in First Thessalonians chapter four, in fact the guys and I are gonna cover this this coming weekend. Yeah. And we will make reference to second Samuel 13. But he says, Paul says to the churches, says, God's will is for your sanctification. And part of that will looks like abstaining from sexual morality. He doesn't just say, Hey a little bit's, okay. Tolerate some, but make sure that you're getting most of it out. He's saying abstinence is the only goal. Zero. A zero tolerance policy, not about your school, but my school has a zero tolerance policy for cheating and for plagiarism. So if I cheat on a paper, submit a paper that. Someone else wrote they will kick me out and rightly there is a zero to tolerance policy from Paul about the kind of expectation that we have for sexual morality because it's so rampant. This is so hard for a church today because so many men are captured by sin and they're not even looking for it. Some men are just accosted by it because they're at the wrong place at the wrong time, and the algorithm serves it up saying, oh, you're gonna look at this. You're a male, you're in the. Proper age demographic. And so we have to be, especially on guard today, more than we ever have before. It used to be that you have to go into a shady, liquor store and go in a section, and you had to at least face the fact that someone's gonna see you getting this stuff today. We have anonymity availability, free availability and accessibility. Anonymity, avail. What's the, there's a three legged stool that makes up the addiction cycle. I forget what that is, but anonymity is one of them. Affordability, that's the one. And availability or accessibility. It's easy to get to. It's free, and you can, at least in your mind, think that you're anonymous. This is such a dangerous thing for us to get in involved with. We as a church have to do our job in making sure that we're cultivating the kind of relationships where we can talk about this stuff. And even though there is shame attached to it, know that our shame can be. Taken care of or absolved we could be cleansed from our shame to go back to yesterday's podcast in Christ. Yes. Yeah. Chapter 14 the situation was not going to go well from here. It's not like everything was gonna be okay. In fact, hold on. I'm skipping ahead. Chapter 13, I forgot. Doesn't end with just the offense and Absalom taking Hi in. His sister Absalom's gonna get. Get revenge. And so here's the sword that's not gonna depart from David's house. And now you've got Davidson that is, is the seedbed here for Amon and Tamar. And then you've got, as a result of Amon and Tamar, now the seedbed of the sin of Absalom here. And it is sin Salm, murders Amon and sets up a trap for him. And we might say, yeah, but Amon had it coming to him. Yes he did. He did. But this was not justice in the sense of what. Justice should be, should look like this was justice that was propped up by deception and some. Subterfuge and other things going on. It wasn't Absalom's place to enact justice in this way. So even if it weren't the s subterfuge, he's not the guy. It's not his to do that. Exactly. Yes. But Absalom does and takes out Amon here and murders him. And as a result knows that now he's a marked man, and so he flees and runs away. And that's where we pick up in chapter 14 is you've got this situation where this, the king son Absalom, who now appears to be the next in line, w there were other sons of David that. We're not exactly sure what happened to them other than they're not here. And Absalom appears to be the next guy up. And so you've got the heir to the throne and the heir to the throne is not there and he's away. And so Joab in chapter 14 similar with Nathan uses a woman to go in with a story before David. And David eventually figures this out and he says, Hey, did Joe out put you up to this? And she says, basically, yeah but you need to bring your son back. And so that's what happens in chapter 14. But this is certainly not reconciliation because Absalom comes back but is kept away from the king and and forced to live away from the king for two whole years. And so Absalom is reconciled to the city, but not to his family. He's brought back to the proximity of Jerusalem. But him and David are still at odds with each other. And you've got Absalom thinking. I did nothing wrong. I went to the, to defend the honor of my sister and probably despising. In fact, we know that from what happens of chapter 15, but probably despising his father the whole time for the weakness of him not doing anything, which is an interesting point in itself. Pr. Any thoughts on David's passivity in this? Yeah. David brought this on himself, 100%. Again, God's judgment primary, but his David's complicity in this is that he didn't do anything to his son. He chose to ignore, overlook this egregious violation of a sacred trust, and because of that, his whole family basically starts to crumble right before his eyes. So I think there's a lesson for us as fathers. I. Leaders in our own families to make sure that we're doing the thing that we should be doing. Eli is charged with this too. God held Eli accountable because he doesn't discipline his sons. He didn't restrain their evil, is what scripture says. And here David does the same thing in that he does nothing. He doesn't restrain the evil of his son. Now the question I have is why, and I think the closest thing we get to it is the Greek lexicon, which tells us that David loved him and didn't want to tell him. He didn't. I didn't wanna say anything about this 'cause I was afraid I'd heard him. He's my firstborn. He's the next in line. We do so much damage in our families when we show favoritism and when we don't do the right thing or when we even don't equitably rule and lead our families, that showcases that our ultimate allegiance is God and not any single person in our family. So yes, absolutely. I put this at David's feet, and this is an egregious violation that he should have stepped up to. Yeah I wonder in part yeah, I think it's, it is because of his love for his son that the text says that. But I also wonder if it's a bad love if there's not something there that. It just the shame, right? Like when we as Christians have a sin in our past, very similar to a sin that we see in another brother or another sister, we can be gun shy to confront that brother or sister about the sin that they're, that we see them in. Because we're thinking about, oh man I'm a hypocrite. Because I've done that myself. They're not gonna want to hear from me because they're gonna look at me and think you did this. And so I wonder if David was gun shy to confront Absalom, because Absalom would've been like, Hey, I've got one name for you, Uriah. Do you remember Uriah dad? Do you remember what happened there? Sure. Yeah, that's absolutely right. Which is why we need such a strong confidence in our standing with the Lord. That, that it's not our merit. That it's Christ and Christ alone in our ability to care for brother Galatians six or Matthew 18 is rooted in the fact that we are forgiven by Christ. And so if that person that we're going to points back at us and says, look, yeah, but you've done the same thing. Yeah you know what? You're absolutely right. I have, and by God's grace, I've repented from that and sought his forgiveness, and he's forgiven me, and now I'm righteous in Christ's righteousness. And so I, I understand that. But and what I've done grieves me, and that's why I'm so concerned for you right now, too. Totally. That needs to be our approach rather than That must be. I'm, I've gotten enough time away from it or I've done enough good that I feel good. I can go to somebody now. Yeah. Our standing is in Christ. That's what makes us bold and enough to care for one another to say, look I know what it is to sin in egregious ways. I'm a dummy. Yeah. Don't be me. Don't do this. Or Let me help you now get out of this. There's so many other things he could have done, and I think David's hard is pure here in that there probably is that but it doesn't excuse his passivity. Yeah. If only, if anything it. It makes it worse because he had something to say. He could have said, look, son, I've been down this path. Yeah. Which on that note, fathers do this with your kids. Let them see you repent. Let them see you fail. Let them hear you ask for forgiveness when you need to ask for forgiveness. It's not a weakness. It's a good thing. I've said to my kids before, I want you to be better than me. I want you to grow up to be more godly than I am. I want you to pass me. To lap me. Not that I'm wanting to be an ungodly person, but I want my kids to know man, that, that. That I'm a work in progress that God is sanctifying me as well. And I need to be able to go to them and say, Hey, I was wrong. Will you please forgive me for this? And and teach them that. And teach them what humility looks like and things like that. And so men don't neglect to do that with your kids. It's a lesson that they catch more than that they're taught that they're, that is caught more than is taught as they see that in your life. Chapter 15, then Absalom is going to take things into his own hand. In fact, in verse one you'll read there that he got himself a chariot and horses and 50 men to run before him. You might think, okay, interesting. Move on. That was a claim on the throne by itself, right there. This was a move that was a mark of royalty. The king would ride in the chariot and have people in front of him like this. And so this is a move that Absalom is making there to say, I'm taking authority into my own hands here. But then after that, Absalom being a cunning man, went after the hearts of the people. And so it wasn't just that he was gonna flex, but he was also going to win them over through this betrayal. And he does so by camping out of the gate of the city and saying, oh, I would do better than my father would. And wouldn't it be great if things were better than it is right now? And oh I could do this, and then. And before long, he wins enough favor that he gathers everybody together and takes the throne. And David, again, in a moment of passivity, rather than standing up and saying, no, this isn't happening, I'm the king. And this is wrong. David runs he flees from this. And on his way out, there's a lot that happens here. Hitha fell, who is one of his counselors, ends up siding with Absalom. You've got this guy who's a, a, a. A foreigner Itai who comes and David says, why don't you go back? You're a foreigner. You don't need to risk your life. And this foreigner pledges loyalty to David in a great move there. And so he comes with David, and then you've got this other guy HAI, who David says, Hey, I want you Hai, you don't need to come with me. You go back and you try to thwart the council of hit the fell. You try to undermine it. And then the priests come to him with the arc and David says no. The arc belongs in Jerusalem. And if God sees to it, I'll be, I'll come back to the arc. But the keep the arc in Jerusalem, you guys go back and again, work for me from in Jerusalem there. There's a lot going on. As David is leaving, he's having all of these different conversations with people that are trying to figure out what's going on. But the long is short of it is David is tucking tail and running from his synapse limb at this point. Yeah. And granted, I Absm had won the hearts of the people, so I don't know how much David had and, but he wouldn't have done that. Had David been leading well to this point. I to that point, I wondered exactly that. How does David not know? Yeah. He's at the gate. Absalom is not doing this quietly, I don't think. I just, man, David was a great leader when he was walking with the Lord and then everything came to a startling halt when he has his massive sin situation with Bathsheba, and then everything just seems to crumble from there. Yeah. This begins. This is the beginning of the end for David in terms of the legacy of pain that comes as a result of this massive sin. I'll never forget, you're ever only one dumb decision away from ruining your life. This is evidence of some of that, which your point about being at the gate, that was where the king would sit at this time. The king would actually, there, there was remembering this. Now when we were in Israel the cities, the city gates would have a seat at the gate where the king would sit, and so it's likely that the David should have been at the gate. To hear the people and he wasn't there. And so Absalom took the place that David should have been in, and that's why he's saying to the people, oh, wouldn't it be great if somebody was here to hear your case? But where's the king? Oh look, I'm here. Yeah, I can hear your case for you. Just seems to me that even his servants would've been like, Hey man, this isn't right. Lemme go tell the king about this. No, for sure. Yeah. I don't know. There's so many questions I have here. I just wanna know. Yeah. Let's pray. God make us a pure church, I pray. Lord lust is so strong and so powerful and can be so destructive in families and individuals in a church. And so God, make us a pure church. I pray and ask for that for your favor in that. And God help us to to fight for that with our culture as well. God help us to lead our families well to be faithful fathers. The way that, that, he, again, David did so much that was good, but here we see some examples where he really dropped the ball and we want. To be a church of strong men, strong fathers, strong dads who shepherd and lead their families well. So help us to do that, Lord. And we need your help to do that. We need your grace to, to enable us to do that. And so we pray that you would give us that favor. We pray in Jesus name. Amen. Amen. Keeper in your Bibles tuning again tomorrow for another edition, the Daily Bible Podcast. See you folks. Bye.

Thanks for listening to another edition of the Daily Bible Podcast. This is a ministry of Compass Bible Church in north Texas. You can find out more information about ourChurch@compassntx.org. We would love for you to leave a review to rate to share this podcast on whatever platform you happen to be listening on, and we will catch you against tomorrow for another edition of the Daily Bible Podcast. Yeah. I would agree with everything that you said