To Encourage You

2 Samuel 18:33 “O my son Absalom, my son, my son Absalom! Would I had died instead of you, O Absalom, my son, my son!”

The story of Absalom is one of the saddest accounts in all the Bible.  It’s the story about a prince who, in his wickedness and pride, murdered his half-brother and then did all in his power to usurp the throne of his father David.  He was a rebel with the misguided idea that he could throw off the authority of God’s anointed king and become a king himself through his own efforts and schemes.  But it was all doomed to fail, for who can fight against the omnipotent God Who is sovereign over all creation. Who can ever hope to win? But that’s what Absalom thought he could do – in his self-deception and vain imagination. 

But isn’t that a picture of the rest of us, beginning with Adam and continuing to you and me.  We are born into this world as rebels against the King Who gave us life, for in our natural condition, we are hostile to His Law and hostile to Him.  We want to do what we want without constraint, and we view God’s Word and God’s Law as nothing more than a damper on our fun. But how does God see this? What’s His response to our sin?  

Well, let’s look at the heart of David, whom God Himself called a man with a heart like His (1 Samuel 13:14).  In the account of Absalom, we find David, reluctantly, at war with his own son, a war that was totally instigated by Absalom. David urged his soldiers to “deal gently for my sake with the young man Absalom” (2 Samuel 18:5).  We see a father who, in spite of his son’s rebellion, continued to love him.  But isn’t that the heart of the God and Father of the greatest Son, Who has said that He “is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance” (2 Peter 3:9). This great God, Who knows that rebellion against Him is doomed, has urged all of us to turn from our sin. Listen to Him as He urges Israel to repent in Ezekiel 33:11: “As surely as I live, declares the Sovereign Lord, I take no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but rather that they turn from their ways and live. Turn! Turn from your evil ways! Why will you die, people of Israel?”  And that’s the same heart that He has for the rest of us, this God Who so loved the world that He gave His Son to die for us.  

So back to the story of Absalom. In spite of David’s concern for his son, Absalom was killed by David’s commander Joab when he found him hanging from a tree as a result of his donkey having run under its branches where he had been caught by his head.  So David poured out his heart in anguish with the lament, “Would I had died instead of you, O Absalom, my son, my son!” But it couldn’t be.  Although he had the desire, David was powerless to save his own son.  But here we have a deeper shadow of the heart of God, for although David was described as a man “after God’s own heart,” he fell well short of the measureless love of God.  You see, God, incredibly, chose to do exactly what David was powerless to do. In His amazing grace toward us, He laid all of our sins on His only begotten Son, Who died hanging from a tree, rejected and cursed, for all our sins. Absalom died a victim of his own wicked rebellion. Jesus died as a victim of ours.  And so the very Son of God died for us, so that we might be saved from the inevitable death that is the just sentence for all our sin (Romans 6:23).  

So, what has been your response to God’s love and grace? Have you received the gift of forgiveness that has been made possible by the death of this One Who died hanging from a tree, or will you continue to rebel, and face the curse of Absalom that is the sure destiny of any rebel against the holy King of kings?