2 Samuel 18:9-18

2 Samuel chapter 18 beginning with verse 9 3 reading through verse 18 and Absalom met the servants of David and Absalom wrote upon a mule and the mule went under the thick boughs of a great oak and his head caught hold of the oak and he was taken up between the heaven and the earth and the mule that was under him went away. And a certain man saw it and told Joab and said, Behold, I saw Absalom hanging in an oak. Joab said unto the man that told him, and behold thou sawest him, and why didst thou not smite him there to the ground? I would have given thee ten shekels of silver and a girdle. And the man said unto Joab, though I should have received, though I should receive a thousand shekels, of silver in mine hand, yet would I not put forth mine hand against the king’s son. For in our hearing the king charged thee, Anabishai and Itai, saying, Beware that none touched the young man, Absalom. Otherwise, I should have wrought falsehood against my own life. But there is no matter hid from the king, and thou thyself wouldest have set thyself against me. Then said Joab, I may not. tarry thus with thee. And he took three darts in his hand and thrust them through the heart of Absalon while he was yet alive in the midst of the oak. And ten young men that bear Joab’s armor come past about and smote Absalom and slew him. And Absalom, or excuse me, and Joab blew the trumpet, and the people returned from pursuing after Israel. For the, Joab helped the people. back. And they took Absalom and cast him into a great pit in the wood and laid a very great heap of stones upon him. And all Israel fled everyone to his tent. Now Absalom in his lifetime had taken and reared up for himself a pillar, which is in the king’s dale, for he said, I have no son to keep my name in remembrance. And he called the pillar after his own name. And it is called unto this day, Absalom. place. May God blessed to us, the reading of a secret and holy word this evening. Years ago, there was a 2,000-ton Portuguese coastal steamer that had 53 crewmen, 300 Portuguese troops, and 200 Africans aboard that was grounded on a sandbar off East Africa during a storm. While rescue efforts were being made from the shore, fire broke out on the ship. The fire reached the ammunition stores on the ship, and the whole ship exploded into flames. Many of the passengers jumped into the water trying to escape the flames, only there were hungry sharks in the water which attacked them. Those few who escaped the fire, And the sharks, and managed to get the land, were met by roaring lions from a mangrove jungle nearby. Needless to say, the voyage had a disastrous end for everybody that was on it. There was no way to escape death. It was inevitable for the people on board that ship. The scripture says, the triumph of the wicked is short. The joy of the hypocrite but for a moment in Job chapter 20 in verse 5. Like the passengers on the Portuguese coastal steamer, the life voyage of the wicked is going to end in disaster. This is often true even when measured by human and earthly standards and how much more when we consider it in light of eternity. This certainly proved to be true with regard to David’s evil son, Absalom. Absalom had carefully plotted and schemed, stole the hearts of the people of Israel, had David and his faithful followers on the run, and was about to rest the kingdom entirely for himself by leading a huge army against his father’s forces. Absalom’s triumph seemed to be assured, but he was unknowingly going forth to meet his own tragic end. What happened to Absalom provides, I think, a solemn warning to all who oppose God’s anointed king. And we should think in particular of the Lord Jesus Christ as the true son of David. Let me begin by saying. you find God often brings the wicked to the point where they are isolated and alone. You’ll notice in verse 9 that Absalom met the servants of David and Absalom rode upon a mule and the mule went out, went under the thick boughs of a great oak and his head caught hold of the oak and he was taken up between heaven and earth and the mule that was under him went away. Now scripture is all recorded that David’s troops had success. successfully routed Absalon’s massive army. God’s hand was against Absalom. Versus seven and eight, we see that. Now you’re told the details of what happened to Absalom himself, the leader of this rebellion against David’s kingdom. When Absalom’s men fled from the battlefield in terror, he found himself all alone. And he is confronted. by some of David’s men. And so he has no bodyguard to protect him. He’s riding on a mule, and I think he’s thinking, well, I can just race away from them and use the mule to my advantage. And so he quickly escapes through the forest from David’s foot soldiers. No doubt, like all the rest, try to get through the forest and hopefully get back to the other side of the Jordan. He’s no longer the prize. and arrogant and boastful man seen in the previous chapters. He’s scared. He’s fearful. He’s alone. He’s forced to fend for himself. God has a way of isolating people, taking away every basis of confidence that they might have on which they were relying and leaving them to themselves. He causes your friends to desert you, stripped you of financial support that you previous. enjoyed. And whatever you were counting on to protect yourself, all of a sudden it’s gone. It vanishes. And you’re made vulnerable in a way you never thought possible. See how God turns the tables on Absalom. So that now he is frightened and he is fleeing from David’s men. Instead of the opposite case. Wicked men seldom realize how fragile their situation really is until God’s providence exposes their true state. When Israel turned its back upon the Lord in the book of judges, he gave them over into the hand of Jabin, the king of Canaan. Cicero, you remember, was his army commander. And he was very formidable because he had 900 chariots of iron. The Israelites couldn’t stand up to that type of power. and military might. It was like foot soldiers battling tanks. It just, it was a hard situation. So when God raised up Barak to deliver the Israelites, Cic confidently led forth his army to confront him. Now, Barak stayed up in the mountain of Tabar, away from the 900 chariots that were down below in the prehist. planes. But Cicera knows that Barak must eventually come down if he’s going to attack. And no doubt surrounded the mountain, isolated the Israelites, and thought everything was well in hand. And suddenly the scripture says, the Lord discomforted Cicera. Nice word. He discomfited him. He took away his comfort. Because we find what happens is God snatched victory away from Cicero. He had it made. He had him surrounded. He had him cut off on the mountain. It looks like he’s going to win this battle. And then all of a sudden, everything goes haywire for him. God sends torrential rains. Mud comes down from the mountainside. Everything becomes soggy on the ground, and guess what? The chariots get bogged down in the mud and can’t move. So now he’s lost his edge. Barak, of course, comes down the mountain and attacks. And God gave Barak the victory. And all the host of Cisara fell upon the edge of the sword. And there was not a man that was left. And Cicera himself is fleeing for his life. And guess what? He’s all alone. He has no. one around him. No one to help him. His proud and arrogant man now is frightening alone and fleeing for his very life. He comes to the settlement of the Kenites you remember. And he hides there like a little scared child in the tent and asked J.L. to protect him. To shield him from the pursuing Israelites. Well, she makes sure he’s rested and goes to sleep and then she drives the tent stake through his skull and ends the life of the seemingly invincible sister of a strict of all protection. Gone. On his own hopeless situation. Such is the way that God commonly deals with the wicked who oppose him. So you find God often brings the wicked to the point where they are isolated and alone. Notice you find that God often causes the wicked to become entrap. by circumstances they cannot escape, as verse 9 indicates to us. Absalom himself, by God’s providence, becomes a victim of the woods. Remember verse 8 said that more people died of the wood than in the battle? Well, here’s another example. In this case, it’s Absalon himself. Now, you can imagine Absalom’s escaping through the force as fast as he can. Perhaps he’s turning back. every so often to see how his pursuers are doing, how close they were getting. And he’s trying to put some distance between himself and the end, but the branches of a tree were lower than evidently he expected, either caught him by the neck or as many people believe, by his long, luxuriant hair. His mule keeps going, but Absalon’s left hanging. As the King James says, between Heaven and Earth, he’s hanging in the tree. There’s sort of a symbolic irony in this situation. I don’t know if you thought about it. Riding upon a mule or donkey was a sign of royalty. Remember, Jesus wrote on the donkey when he came in, the mule, when he came into Jerusalem in fulfillment in of Zachariah’s prophecy about the king coming to Jerusalem. So, Absalom, losing the mule, suggests to us that all hopes and aspirations of the kingdom are gone. They went out from underneath him. So here he is. He’s hanging. But the key point here is he’s so entangled by the tree that all his efforts to escape are useless. So there he hangs. You can imagine reaching up with his hands, maybe kicking with his feet, trying to get himself, you move in his head, try, whatever it is, trying to get himself untangled, and he can’t do it. it’s all in vain look with me at jeremiah if you would chapter 48 notice what the Lord says here very similar situation on God in trapping the enemies of his people verses 42 to 44 we read here and Moab shall be destroyed from being a people because he hath magnified himself against the Lord fear in the pit and the snare shall be upon him upon thee, O inhabitant of Moab, saith the Lord. He that fleeth from the fear shall fall into the pit. He did if get up out of the pit, shall be taken in the snare. For I will bring upon it, even upon Moab, the year of their visitation, saith the Lord. There is just no escape. Psalm 92, or excuse me, 94, talks about God digging a pit for the wicked to fall into. It may be that God. God restricts you to a hospital bed or traps you in a miserable job or cause you to have someone have control over you in some way. But God has his deep pit and like Joseph’s brothers did to him, so God does to the wicked, and they cannot escape it. No matter how you cry or you wiggle or you squirm or plot to escape, there is no escape and God will not let you get away. Now why does God do this? what does he just cut off the wicked? Why don’t he just strike them down immediately? Why do it slowly? Consider this. We don’t know how long Absalom hung in the tree before he was discovered. Was it 30 minutes? Was it an hour? Was it two hours? We just don’t know. But notice how God entraps the wicked so that they will have time to reflect on their wicked ways to ponder how they ended up the way they ended up. God is pleased to make the wicked confess in a way way oh how foolish I have been look where my sin has landed me. Darkness and despair is all I see. You can imagine Absalon hanging there reflecting on his evil ways the the ruthless murder his brother Amnot, the burning of Joab’s fields, the lies he told his father, the stealing his father’s kingdom, the heartless and cruel way in which he was trying to kill his own father, the sexual perversion that he engaged in with David’s concubine wives, and on and on we could go. It wasn’t by chance that that happened. It wasn’t by chance that the prodigal son ended up completely broke and having to eat pig slop because he had to reflect on how much better it was in his father’s house. He came to himself, as the King James puts it. He was thinking about where he was and how he got there and all the rightest living that he was engaging in, all the wicked things he had done, and look where it landed him. Look at Judas after he betrayed the Lord Jesus Christ. Absolutely. miserable, filled with regret and remorse for having shed innocent blood. He tries to take the pride money back. He despairs going on and he hangs himself. In Pilgrim’s progress, when Christian gets to the interpreter’s house, he’s shown a man in an iron cage, this man used to be a professing believer, but he cast aside his faith. He lived a profane lifestyle, and now he sees himself as someone who’s shut out of all the promises, under the certain judgment and fiery indignation of the Lord. He’s not immediately cut off by God, but he’s entrapped in an iron cage, and what he has to do is he has to think about how he got there, how he ended up in this situation. And that’s what he’s pondering. So he’s made to reflect on his foolish ways for quite some time. God is pleased a time to make the wicked bemoan their evil ways and thus admit that God’s judgment is just. Thirdly, tonight, you find God often makes the wicked a spectacle before others, or 10 to 16. While Absalom’s hanging, helpless in this tree, he’s found by one of David’s men. then a number of people behold his predicament as they were all gathering to see what’s going on. God set up Absalom as a spectacle for men to behold, as a public example, if you would, for people to ponder. Absalom is the object of ridicule and scorn as people you can imagine laughing at him. Here’s the man who thought he was going to be king, and here’s how he ends up, hanging in the tree. free, helpless and weak and friendless. If you would, look at Psalm 52 with me tonight. We have verses 1 to 7. Scripture says this. Why boastest thou in thy mischief, O mighty man? The goodness of God endureth continually. Thy tongue deviseth mischiefs like a sharp razor working deceitfully. Thou lovest evil more than good and lying rather than to speak righteousness, Seela. Thou love us all deviring words, O thou deceitful tongue. God shall likewise destroy thee forever. He shall take thee away and pluck thee out of thy dwelling place and root thee out of the land of the living sealah. The righteous also shall see it and fear and shall laugh at him. Lo, this is the man that may not God his strength, but trusted in the abundance of his riches and strengthened himself in his wickedness. The godly are often enabled to see the wicked notably punished by God. The righteous also shall see, the scripture says here. And you observe, as you observe God meeting out this justice and misery on the wicked, it creates within you a holy fear of this is the God that we serve. And there is such a thing as a shout of righteousness. joy and delight here. Well, they will, in a sense, laugh at him. When truth and righteousness triumph over the wicked, the righteous rejoice. Think of the disgrace and the ridicule and the scorn endured my Haman who builds gallows to hang Mordecai and he himself gets hung on them. See the people God celebrating the downfall of Haman with the feet. of Purim when they were delivered. Years ago there was an evangelist who was very popular in England and Scotland and he did a lot of outdoor preaching. And if you ever read any of the accounts when these guys go out into the fields and the meadows to preach the gospel, they may draw huge crowds, but they also draw a lot of people that are hecklers that are troublemakers. And many times they’re just there to be do harm or mischief. The audience was normally tolerably quiet until he nearly finished his discourse, but then some shouted to the top of their lungs to drown out the evangelist at the end, to just a babble of confusion going on. Well, one man, it was full of maliciousness, had filled his pockets with rotten eggs that he was going to throw at the evangelist. Pout the priest. with him. Well, a young man perceiving the malicious intentions of this other man decided he was going to thwart the evil-doer, so he went up behind the man and clapped both hands across the pockets of the man. The rotten eggs were smashed at once, and at an instant the man was perfumed all over with the smell of rotten eggs, and everybody laughed at his predicament. He got what he deserved. There’s nothing wrong with rejoined. when God’s righteousness and justice prevails over wicked men. They get what they deserve and everybody sees it. Such is the case here with Absalon. Fourthly tonight, you find God often doesn’t permit any compassion to be shown to the wicked. Again, verses 10 to 16. The soldier who discovered the dangling Absalon reported the incident to the army captain, He himself did not take any steps to harm Absalom. So he doesn’t strike him down. Joab here gets upset because he thought that you should have immediately killed him and got this thing over with. The soldier, however, didn’t want to disobey the king. He figured, you know, the king’s going to find out that I killed him. And I heard him warn you guys, the commanders, not to harm his son. so he doesn’t do anything. Joab says that he would have given him money and I think the girdle here was a captain’s belt. I would have promoted you in the army if you had done this. Joab knows what’s best for the nation, however, and he decides he’s going to meet out God’s justice here in this situation. So he takes three shafts or darts, throws him into Absalom’s midsection. The wounds, probably were mortal, but he also allows his armor bearers to surround him and strike him. So that Absalom dies. Joab certainly wasn’t a godly man, but he sees what needs to be done, and he does it for the good of the kingdom, I think. Joab appears to be ruthless. David seems to be compassionate, but Joab actually is carrying out the law’s punishment against the evil doer. In the New Testament, it talks about those who despise God’s law shall die without mercy. Of how much sore punishment, those who have turned their backs upon the Lord Jesus Christ and the message of the gospel. People who despise God’s law presumptiously sin, they’re deliberate and brazen and doing it. And the Bible indicates that such a sin is a capital. offense, whether it be murder or adultery or incest or blaspheming the name of the Lord, whatever the case may be, they die without mercy. In other words, there is no pity to be shown to them. They’re not to be let off and shown compassion. Deuteronomy 13 and 19 both says, you know, you put them to death. God alone, by virtue of being the sovereign Lord overall, he has the right to dispense with the capital punishment, like he did in the case of David. But the Israelites didn’t have the right to do so. They had to follow the law of God. Paul applies the situation in Hebrew to the apostates who deliberately sin and cast inside the true faith in Hebrews in Hebrews chapter 10, verses 28 and 29. There’s no hope for renewing them under repentance, and he says they’re going to have a sore punishment because, Obviously, the indication is this is a much worse sin, and certainly how fire awaits them. Evil-doers are to be cut off by rulers who wield the power of the sword, who have the power of the death penalty. And because evil civil magistrates fail in regard to this, that evil abounds. The law is supposed to blindly meet out justice, and so if Abslon, who is the king’s son, does something evil, he should be punished for it. And Joab puts him to death. So you find God doesn’t permit any compassion to be shown to the wicked here. And notice also here, fifthly, you find God often causes the wicked to die a shameful death. Look at verses 17 and 18 with me. And they took Absalom and cast him into a great pit in the wood and laid a very great heap of stones upon him, and all Israel fled. every man to his tent. Now, Absalom in his lifetime had taken and reared up for himself a pillar, which is in the king’s dale, for he said, I have no son to keep my name in remembrance. And he called the pillar after his own name. And it’s called unto this day, Absalom’s place. This is the end of Absalom, the darling of the people, the dashing, royal favorite, who oppose God’s anointed, and opposed God’s kingdom. Several things stand out. He dies like a man that’s accursed. He, like Aiken in the book of judges, is buried under a large pile of stones after being tossed into a pit. Like the king of Aai, when Israel was conquering the land of Canaan, who was hanged and then buried under a large pile of stones, and Joshua, 8, Absalon has a similar faith. That’s the sign of a man of cursed. He dies without honor as royalty. Now, Absalon, we’re told, built this monument, sort of act as a grand tomb for him to be buried in. To honor him in his death, it was going to be a public display. He was a great man, and he was going to let everybody know how great he was. Instead of being buried in, his tomb, Absalon is buried out here in the middle of the woods. And in an unmarked grave, as far as we know, apart from any fanfare by Israel. There’s no elaborate funeral for him. His ornate and elaborate tomb would remain empty. The running joke could be in those days. Who’s buried in Absalom’s tomb? Because it certainly wasn’t Absalom. So, he dies without honor as royal. He dies childless, the Bible tells us here. Now, the scriptures record in 2nd Samuel Chapter 14 that Absalom had three sons. But evidently, they must have pre-deceased their father, and they must have died. Because when it comes time for death, we’re told he has no family line here. They must have all died. An indication of God visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children, even before Absalon is put to death. So these things were signs of God’s judgment against him. It’s almost as if there were a sign erected over the sight. Curse it be the memory of rebellious Absalom, and so let all thy enemies perish, O Lord. What an example of whosoever exalts himself shall be abased. On Hitler’s birthday, April 20th, 1945, Reich’s Mars, Herman Goring stood outside his castle estate, 50 miles north west of Berlin. It was called Karen Hall, named after his wife, in memory of his first wife, Karen, K-A-R-I-N. And it was a repository of Garing’s unquenchable appetite for opulence and luxury, because as anyone could see if you know anything about wearing goering he would he would have paintings and you know statutes he’d have all this stuff that they collected when they captured France and other countries and he could see all this was going to go down the tubes with the Third Reich coming to an end so he was getting out 24 Luftwaffe trucks were lined up to take away all his stuff and they were stuffed with antiques and paintings and silver that Goring had hoped to salvage. The convoy was going to make a break for the south. Goring gave a last view over the wings and buttresses of this huge fortress, this castle. An engineering officer indicated all things were ready. Goring walked across the street, grabbed the handle of a detonator, and pushed down the plunger and blew it all up. So it was a pile of rubble. Karen hall was in ruins. That’s where all the pride and all the arrogance and all the greed ends at the end of a plunger of a detonator or in the pit in a forest in Ephraim. Absalom’s death as a man under the curse is typical of what will be the lot of all those who set themselves against God’s chosen king, the Lord Jesus Christ. they will all come to destruction. You’ll notice here that the unrighteous make great arrangements for the body, but they neglect the eternal state of their soul. Look at this work he goes to all this trouble to make this tomb to prepare someplace for his body when he dies, but he has no preparation for his soul. While the Portuguese coaster steamer was ground on a sandbar during a storm. The fire breaks out. The ammunition explodes. People are jumping in the water and they were attacked by sharks. Those which made it to the land were eaten by the lions. Needless to say, this voyage had a disastrous end. Scripture records that’s often the way it is for the wicked. There is a quick plunge from the pinnacle of success to the pit to a disastrous end. Let this truth be an encouragement to you and I as the children of God. Let us close with prayer.