Ten Minute Bible Talks Devotional Bible Study - How to Protest and Why You Should | David in 22 | 2 Samuel 18

Starting point is 00:00:00 Welcome to 10-minute Bible Talks, where we connect the Bible to your life and the time it takes to get to work. I'm Patrick Miller. And I'm Keith Simon. Right now we're working through the story of David's life found in First and Second Samuel. What do you do when life's not right, when things aren't the way they're supposed to be, when you see bad things happen in the lives of those you love? I think we feel the not-rightness of life, especially when it hits our feelings. families, our parents, our siblings, our kids, when a child spirals from one bad choice into another,

Starting point is 00:00:42 when our mom's depression or anxiety leaves her totally helpless, when our dad's lifelong addictions explode into public, when someone gets sick, when someone dies too young. What do you do? What do you say to God. I wonder how David felt when he watched his son Absalon spin out of control. As he watched him lead a coup, set himself inexorably against the will of God. He had to think this isn't the way it's supposed to be. Son shouldn't turn on fathers. Even worse, how could his God and his son be at odds with one another? What would you do? What would you say to God? Absalom is in control of Jerusalem in this story, and he wants advice to figure out how to destroy his own father, how to kill David.

Starting point is 00:01:40 And he gets good advice from a man named Ahedafel, and he gets bad advice from a man named Hushai. But Absalom, he has no idea which one's good, which one's bad, and he ends up taking the bad advice. Why? Well, verse 14 tells us, for the Lord had determined to frustrate the good advice of Hidafel in order to bring disaster on Absalom. Those are chilling words, aren't they? I mean, just let them sit on you for a second. The Lord had determined to bring disaster on Absalom. Again, did David know it? Could you see the inevitability of Absalom's choices? David has no choice but to defend himself. So he musters his troops. We read in 2 Samuel 18.2, the king commanded Joab, Abashai and Ittai. Those are his general. be gentle with the young man, Absalom, for my sake.

Starting point is 00:02:35 And all the troops heard the king giving orders concerning Absalom to each of the commanders. Be gentle, David's pleading. Be gentle, soldiers, be gentle generals, be gentle. But he almost wonders, is he pleading with God too. God, please be gentle. The battle ensues, and David's men, they rout Absalom's force. And by some freak accident, or maybe we're supposed to even read, God's providence into it, Absalom's hair gets caught in the branches of an oak tree. And his donkey that

Starting point is 00:03:07 he's riding on, it just keeps walking. And so here's Absalom. He's unsaddled. He's suspended in the air by his hair. And we read in verse 14, Joab, he took three javelins in his hand and plunged them into Absalom's heart while Absalom was still alive in the oak tree. And ten of Joab's armor bearers surrounded Absalom, struck him and killed him. David, is waiting. He's not with the other warriors. And he sees runners coming in the distance and he says, I think it must be good news. But we have to ask the question, what is good news in this situation? If Absalom lives, his throne is lost. If his throne is preserved, Absalom, his son dies. The news comes to David, his throne is preserved. But Absalom is dead. We pick up in 2nd Samuel 1833.

Starting point is 00:03:58 The king was shaken. He went up to the room over the gateway and wept. As he went, he said, Oh, my son, Absalom, my son, my son, Absalom. If only I had died instead of you. Oh, Absalom, my son, my son. This chapter is everybody's worst nightmare. Someone you love setting their lives so much so against God's will that they finally end up paying the ultimate cost. and where does it leave us? It leaves us without them. It leaves us mourning their death. And preparing for this devotion, to be honest, I wanted to put a positive spin on this passage. But there's no way to turn David's weeping into laughter. Life's not the way it's supposed to be. And sentimentalism is not the answer. If someone you love is headed down a path of destruction,

Starting point is 00:04:51 this passage offers you no coin solutions. It can't. Because they're a lot. lives are out of our hands. Even King David, the chosen one of God, the one after God's own heart, lost a child to self-destruction. And I think David's response is telling. He weeps. He laments. He mourns. Lament is the ultimate form of godly protest. Because lament is a way of shattering ourselves in a vivid response to the way that the world has been shattered around us, to the that the world isn't the way it's supposed to be. Lament cries out. This is wrong. This shouldn't be. It protests with tears and heartbreak. David's Psalms are filled with lament. Protest to God. He's saying, God, you're the one in charge. Where are you? Don't you see? Don't you act? Don't you see my pain?

Starting point is 00:05:50 Respond God, act God. Psalm 13. How long go, Lord? Will you forget me forever? How long will you hide your face from me? How long must I take counsel in my soul and have sorrow in my heart all the day? Psalm 66. I am weary with moaning. Every night I flood my bed with tears. I drench my couch with weeping. Psalm 22. My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Why are you so far from saving me from the words of my groaning? Oh my God, I cry by day, but you don't answer. And by night, but I find no rest. It's an uncomfortable fact for a lot of Christians that the Bible is so comfortable taking God to court. Taking God to court through lament, through the protest of lament, demanding an answer from God about the broken things in the world for the ways that things have gone sideways. Lament, that's the answer that this story gives us.

Starting point is 00:06:52 But is that the end of lament? Is protest what lament is all about? Well, not quite. You see, David's Psalms present a journey of lament. It's a journey from anger and confusion into the perfectly holy, good, and just presence of God. Psalm 22 continues, Yet you, God, are holy, enthroned on the praises of Israel, and you are fathers trusted, they trusted, and you delivered them. Lament takes us before God's holiness, not to ease our pain, Actually, in the light of His holiness, we just see how wrong our lives are, how shattered the world really is. But it's in that holiness that we enter into an inescapable infinity of God's love and goodness

Starting point is 00:07:40 and justice. We realize right there in his presence, as we are lamenting, as we are protesting, as we are taking him to court, that God is just as grieved and angry as we are. In fact, we realize that God is far more committed to setting things right than we will ever ever be. How do we know that? Well, it's because in his presence, we see him. We see him losing his own son in order to set things right. We see him shedding his own blood to put the world back into joint because we realized that he has experienced the not rightness of the world. He didn't have to experience. He could have just let us go, but he has experienced the not rightness of the world in far worse ways than we could ever imagine and that he has committed himself to

Starting point is 00:08:26 setting it right at the highest cost, even though he didn't have to do it, even though he didn't deserve to be there on the cross. Lament gives us eyes to see God's goodness so that we can trust him. That's the goal, so that we can trust him when things aren't good in life. Because who else can we trust? Today, I want to invite you to lament. It's not something we're great at in our culture, in our context, but I want to invite you to lament, to bring something that's not the way it's supposed to be into God's presence, to cry out to him, to cry out at him, until you see his holy perfection, until you see his love and his justice perfectly entwined, until you see him losing his son, until you see him spilling his own blood, until you're able to hand what's not

Starting point is 00:09:19 right into his eternally gracious hands. Go deep into lament with God so that you can go deep into trust. Thanks for listening. If you've enjoyed this content, please subscribe and give us a rating. That helps other people find this podcast more easily. Also, ask yourself, who could you share this podcast with? Texting an episode to a friend or a family member is a great way to help them grow spiritually. If you want to go deeper, check out our show notes for book recommendations.

Ten Minute Bible Talks Devotional Bible Study - How to Protest and Why You Should | David in 22 | 2 Samuel 18

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