To Encourage You

2 Samuel 19:4-6 “The king covered his face, and the king cried with a loud voice, ‘O my son Absalom, O Absalom, my son, my son!’ Then Joab came into the house to the king and said, ‘You have today covered with shame the faces of all your servants, who have this day saved your life and the lives of your sons and your daughters and the lives of your wives and your concubines, because you love those who hate you and hate those who love you. For you have made it clear today that commanders and servants are nothing to you, for today I know that if Absalom were alive and all of us were dead today, then you would be pleased.’”

Throughout the Scriptures we have many instances of people who thought they were doing good when in fact they were doing evil.  The book of Judges closes with the words, “In those days there was no king in Israel. Everyone did what was right in his own eyes.” The problem was that the things that were right in THEIR eyes were anything but right in the eyes of God.  Another example is when King Saul disobeyed God in the instance of the Amalekites. In 1 Samuel 15 we read that he was commanded by God to destroy all the people and the possessions of this wicked nation.  However, Saul decided to keep the best of the livestock and the king of the Amalekites alive.  Then when the prophet Samuel visited Saul soon afterwards, this is what Saul said: “Blessed be you to the Lord. I have performed the commandment of the Lord.” He saw what he had done as good in God’s eyes.  But Samuel rebuked him for his disobedience, and it was because of that sin that God rejected Saul as king. 

In the passage above we have an excerpt from an account of King David’s commander Joab after he had killed David’s rebellious son Absalom, although David had commanded Joab and all Israel to deal gently with him.  Yet Joab saw what he had done as a wonderful thing, and he rebuked David because of his sorrow when Absalom’s death had meant salvation for David, his family, and his nation.  It was as if David loved his enemies and hated his friends, and Joab says to him, “I know that if Absalom were alive and all of us were dead today, then you would be pleased.” Of course, that wasn’t really true, but that’s how Joab saw it. 

Moving to the New Testament, perhaps nothing is more shocking in all the Scriptures than the fact that those who killed Jesus thought they were serving God by what they had done.  Jesus warned his followers that the same would be true for them with these words: “They will put you out of the synagogues. Indeed, the hour is coming when whoever kills you will think he is offering service to God. And they will do these things because they have not known the Father, nor me. But I have said these things to you, that when their hour comes you may remember that I told them to you” (John 16:1-3). 

The Saul of the New Testament was one such person. We are told that he went about “breathing threats and murder against the disciples of the Lord” (Acts 9:1), i.e., until Jesus personally struck him blind on the road to Damascus and turned his entire life upside down. 

What’s so amazing about all this is how God acted through it to save a world that was so blind that they actually hated Him in the name of religion.  It was in the work of the cross that it seemed that He, just as Joab had accused David, “love(d) those who hate(d) (Him) and hate(d) those who love(d) (Him).”  This notion is further strengthened by this startling prophecy from Isaiah 53, which points to Jesus as One Who had “done no violence, neither was any deceit in his mouth.  Yet, it pleased the Lord to bruise him.”  Again, we look to Joab’s words as a shadow of all this, although in the form of an antitype.  You see, in essence, what Joab had said to David was, “don’t you realize that because of Absalom’s death all the people have been saved, yet you act as if you’d have been pleased if Absalom had lived and we had all died.”  It’s understandable how a father, such as David, would have such grief over his own son, though he was so sinful. It’s NOT understandable, however, in fact it’s unfathomable, that God would put to death His perfect and sinless Son (and in some way that is beyond our understanding, to be “pleased” to do so) in order that He might bring salvation to a world that hated Him. 

So, how do you see all of this?  Do you see yourself as a good person who will one day find favor with God, or do you rightly see yourself as a sinner, an enemy of God? You see, it is those who see themselves as right in their own eyes that see no need to turn from their sin and be saved.  It’s all the opposite of the way God sees things, and it shuts them out from the salvation that God is pleased to give all who would believe.  It’s all made possible through the death of God’s only begotten son, something God brought about because He loved a world that hated Him, and something to which Jesus, the Lamb of God, willingly submitted as the incredible sacrifice to take away the sin of the world (John 1:29).