your Bible and turn with me in the Word of God to 2 Samuel 13. We're going to read a number of verses this morning. I kind of looked at this and said, should we just maybe skip around and read parts, but you know there is something powerful to just reading the Word and it may take a few minutes, but we're going to start in chapter 13 verse 30 and read through chapter 14. With October the 31st behind us, you probably had a lot of costumed visitors come to your door this past week in search of a treat. And maybe they got a tract along with their treat. Kids love dressing up in the likeness of their favorite characters. Our little neighbor Kevin came to our door disguised as a crocodile. And sometimes disguises are harmless fun. I'm glad it was a disguise and not a real crocodile at my door. But we will see in this morning's text that while sometimes disguise can be fun, many times disguise can also be a very dangerous thing as is the case in our text this morning. So please stand as we read from God's holy inerrant and life-giving word. 2 Samuel chapter 13 beginning with verse 30. While they were on the way, that is the king's sons who had made their way, news came to David. Absalom had struck down all the king's sons and not one of them is left. Then the king arose and tore his garments and lay on the earth, and all his servants who were standing by tore their garments. But Jonadab the son of Shemiah, David's brother, said, Let not my lord suppose that they have killed all the young men, the king's sons, for Amnon alone is dead. For by the command of Absalom this has been determined from the day he violated his sister Tamar. Now therefore let not my lord the king so take it to heart as to suppose that all the king's sons are dead for Amnon alone is dead. But Absalom fled." This is after Absalom had Amnon killed. and the young man who kept the watch lifted up his eyes, and looked, and behold, many people were coming from the road behind him by the side of the mountain. And Jonadab said to the king, Behold, the king's sons have come, as your servant said, so it has come about. And as soon as he had finished speaking, behold, the king's sons came and lifted up their voice and wept. And the king also and all his servants wept very bitterly. But Absalom fled and went to Talmai the son of Amahab king of Gesher. And David mourned for his son day after day. So Absalom fled and went to Gesher and was there three years. And the spirit of the king longed to go out to Absalom because he was comforted about Amnon since he was dead. Now Joab the son of Zeruiah knew that the king's heart went out to Absalom and Joab sent to Tekoa and brought from there a wise woman and said to her, pretend to be a mourner and put on mourning garments. Do not anoint yourself with oil, but behave like a woman." Again, behave like a woman who has been mourning for many days for the dead. Go to the king and speak to him thus. So Joab put the words in her mouth. When the woman of Tekoa came to the king, she fell on her face to the ground and paid homage and said, Save me, O king. And the king said to her, What is your trouble? She answered, Alas, I am a widow. My husband is dead. And your servant had two sons, and they quarreled with one another in the field. And there was no one to separate them. And one struck the other and killed him. And now the whole clan has risen against your servant. And they say, Give up the man who struck his brother, that we may put him to death for the life of his brother whom he killed. And so they would destroy the heir also. Thus they would quench my coal that is left, and leave to my husband neither name nor remnant on the face of the earth. Then the king said to the woman, Go to your house, and I will give orders concerning you. And the woman of Tekoa said to the king, On me be the guilt, my lord the king, and on my father's house. Let the king in his throne be guiltless. The king said, If anyone says anything to you, bring him to me and he shall never touch you again. Then she said, Please let the king invoke the Lord your God that the avenger of blood kill no more and my son be not destroyed. He said, As the Lord lives, not one hair of your son shall fall to the ground. Then the woman said, Please let your servant speak a word to my lord the king. He said, Speak. And the woman said, Why then have you planned such a great thing against the people of God? For in giving this decision the king convicts himself inasmuch as the king does not bring his banished one home again. We must all die, we are like water spilled on the ground which cannot be gathered up again. But God will not take away life and He devises means so that the banished one will not remain an outcast. Now I have come to say this to my Lord and the king, because the people have made me afraid and your servant thought I will speak to the king. It may be that the king will perform the request of his servant. For the king will hear and deliver his servant from the hand of the man who would destroy me and my son together with the heritage of God." And your servant thought, The word of my Lord the King will set me at rest. For my Lord the King is like the angel of God to discern good and evil. The Lord your God be with you. And the King answered the woman, Do not hide from me anything I ask you. And the woman said, Let my Lord the King speak. And the King said, Is the hand of Joab with you in all this? The woman answered and said, As surely as you live, my lord the king, one cannot turn to the right hand or to the left from anything that my lord the king has said. It was your servant Joab who commanded me. It was he who put all these words in the mouth of your servant in order to change the course of things. Your servant Joab did this. But my lord has wisdom, like the wisdom of the angel of God, to know all things that are on the earth. Then the king said to Joab, Behold, now I grant this. Go, bring back the young man Absalom. And Joab fell on his face to the ground and paid homage and blessed the king. And Joab said, Today your servant knows that I have found favor in your sight, my lord the king, in that the king has granted the request of his servant. So Joab arose and went to Gesher and brought Absalom to Jerusalem. And the king said, Let him dwell apart in his own house. is not to come into my presence." So Absalom lived in his own house and did not come into the king's presence. Now in all Israel there was no one so much to be praised for his handsome appearance as Absalom. From the sole of his foot to the crown of his head, there was no blemish in him. And when he cut the hair of his head, for at the end of every year he used to cut it, when it was heavy on him, he'd cut it. He weighed the hair of his head, 200 shekels by the king's weight. Now there were born to Absalom three sons and one daughter whose name was Tamar. She was a beautiful woman. So Absalom lived two full years in Jerusalem without coming into the king's presence. Then Absalom sent for Joab to send him to the king, but Joab would not come to him. And he sent a second time, but Joab would not come. Then he said to his servants, See, Joab's field is next to mine, and he has barley there. Go and set it on fire. So Absalom's servants set the field on fire. Then Joab arose and went to Absalom at his house and said to him, Why have your servants set my field on fire? Absalom answered Joab, Behold, I sent word to you, come here, that I may send you to the king to ask, Why have I come from Gesher? It would be better for me to be there still. Now therefore let me go into the presence of the king, and if there is guilt in me, let him put me to death." Then Joab went to the king and told him, and he summoned Absalom. So he came to the king and bowed himself on his face to the ground before the king, and the king kissed Absalom. Let's pray. Our Father, once again what a pleasure, what a joy, and in this case what a story. And yet a story or an account, a narrative of truthful events that while it may at first seem to cause us to wonder, what's this doing here? We can see as we study it further that it has a very important role to play. And we just pray that we would see that role today and hear the message that you have to bring to our hearts through bringing to us this account of these events. We pray these things in Jesus' name, amen. You may be seated. Well, as you have seen, this is a lengthy passage with a number of intricate details, and some of them need careful thought and consideration in order to really understand what's going on here. And yet, when you walk carefully through the intricacies, it becomes apparent that the substance really can be summed up pretty plainly. So we're going to dig down. I'm not going to cover every single leaf of every single tree, although that's my personal tendency to get lost in the details. But there's some details that we're going to dig into. Others we're not going to because it doesn't necessarily contribute to the overall message as critically as others. And our time itself is limited. So we're going to dig down on several critical details, but try to keep our attention on the overall flow of the material. and I'm going to have to just bring, you know, let's just go back and just restate what's happening here. The setting is this, Absalom plotted and planned for two years to take vengeance on his half-brother Amnon who had forcibly violated his sister Tamar. He invited his brothers to go to a sheep shearing party and when Amnon was buzzed, Absalom gave the signal and his servants struck and killed him. Rumors began to fly, and for a moment David was led to believe that all his sons had been killed. But when the smoke cleared, it was apparent that only Amnon was dead, and the person responsible, Absalom, had fled. He went to a foreign land for refuge. And he stayed there three years with Talmai, who happens to be, or if we were reading into it, realize that this king to whom he fled is actually his mother's dad. So this is his maternal grandfather. Meanwhile, David was grieved over the death of Amnon and troubled over Absalom. It would seem that David was consumed in his thoughts with what to do about Absalom. From the flow of the text, it would seem that the heat of David's anger had subsided a little and he was conflicted, desiring to bring Absalom home but lacking sound reason to do so. So Joab the king's nephew and chief military officer observed the state of the mind and heart of the king and decided to do something about it, to change the course of things. He designed to give David the rationale that he needed in order to bring Absalom back to Jerusalem. Joab's plan was to imitate the approach of the Lord when he sent Nathan to confront David. But he would send a woman. He secured the services of a so-called wise woman from Tekoa, a short distance away, and she fabricated a sad story purported to be of her two sons. And as the story went, while in a fight, one killed the other. And the clan wanted the head of the one who did the killing. So she came to the king then to seek protection for the surviving son, which David pledged to give. And then she reasoned with him that the same rationale should be used for David to restore his son to Jerusalem. Now David was sharp enough to know that Joab had put the woman up to this. And he went to Joab and he instructed him to get Absalom and bring him back. However, the son Absalom was to remain in his own house, and he did so for two years. However, being quite popular and quite full of himself, Absalom determined to seek the favor of the king. He went so far as to set on fire the barley field of Joab to get his attention and receive the attention that he demanded. And in the end, he obtained a kiss from the king. On the outside, It looks like there has been reconciliation. However, truth be told, it is just alienation wearing a disguise. That's what I think we need to see in this passage, is what looks like reconciliation is actually alienation, dressed up to look like something. that it's not. There's a whole lot of disguising going on in this text. In a sense, you could say that Joab disguises himself as a woman in that he gets this woman to be involved in his plan and puts his words in her mouth. The woman disguises herself as a mourning widow. Her message is foolishness disguised as wisdom. And the end result is alienation disguised as reconciliation. The whole chapter provides us things and people that appear to be what they in fact are not. When we think of disguises in the Bible, we recognize that their purpose is to deceive. Well, the first deceiver, the first disguiser was Satan himself, who came in the disguise of a snake, a serpent in the garden, and he has never since ceased to perpetuate deception. When Paul wrote the Corinthians, he expressed concern. He said, I am afraid. that as the serpent deceived Eve by his cunning, I'm afraid that your thoughts will also be led astray from a pure and sincere devotion to Christ. So the Corinthians had been invaded by individuals who were preaching a false Jesus and a false gospel. Of them, Paul said this, such men are false apostles, deceitful workmen, disguising themselves as apostles of Christ. And no wonder, for even Satan disguises himself as an angel of light. So it's no surprise, says Paul, if his servants also disguise themselves as servants of righteousness. And so, as we approach this text, we need to do so with suspicion. We are looking for disguise, and we are looking for deception that is connected with the disguise. People are behaving cunningly in this chapter. With our eyes peeled for disguise, we'll be able, however, to discern the difference. We'll be able to discern between that which is true and that which is dress-up. That which is true and maybe partially true. Partially true meaning untrue. We will come away therefore with a solid grasp of why the Lord included the details of these events in His holy word. And we will stand in awe of the God of the word and be better able to articulate a key issue at the heart of the gospel. And namely that issue is reconciliation. What is true reconciliation between God and human beings. So examining this text I want you to observe first of all the false wisdom of Joab through the woman. I want you to see that there is false wisdom that comes from Joab through the woman, it was Joab that determined that something had to be done to change the course of things, he didn't like the way things were going, this was not good. We cannot be absolutely certain for sure why Joab felt that something needed to be done, but the signals in the text indicate that it had to do with what he thought was best for the country, what he thought was best for Israel. Seemingly, he determined it was not good for the king to be distracted from running the country because of the grief that he was experiencing over Amnon on the one hand, and on the other hand, the agonizing that was going on in his thinking as he considered what he needed to do about the banished one Absalom. I do not think that we can fault Joab for wanting to help David get past the tragedy. It's been three years at this point. However, what we do have to be critical about is the solution that Joab came up with. and how he proposed to implement the solution. Joab's solution was just to return Absalom to the capital city. And his method involved deception and emotional persuasion. What was missing was the word and command of the Lord. Consideration of what would be the will of God in the matter. When things in your life are in shambles, what you think will solve the problem and how you go about solving it matters. There's always the matter of what is the will of God. What has God said about this and what is His solution and how would He want me to be involved in His accomplishing that solution? But human beings, we always have all kinds of opinions about how to put shambles back into place. And there are plenty of man-centered experts who use man-centered thinking to confidently arrive at man-invented solutions. But in the end, we must remember that the man is blessed who, Psalm 1-1, does what? Walks not in the counsel of the wicked. He does not live according to the reasoning of the world. Rather, His delight is in the law of the Lord, and on His law He meditates day and night. And He operates accordingly. The best and right solutions, the blessed solutions are the ones to which God's Word points. And the best and right, the blessed ways of arriving at those solutions are also found in His Word. What God's Word says needs to be at the heart of the solutions and the methods. So Joab thinks he's wise. He's got a solution. He's got a plan. But what he thinks is wisdom is actually foolishness wearing a disguise. He secures the service of this so-called wise woman from Tekoa. And by the way, I think it would be important to underscore this point, the word wise that describes this woman is the same word for wise that described Jonadab in the previous chapter which if you were here last week and you know who Jonadab he was called wise because he had a plan and he's the one that gave the plan to Absalom to Amnon as to how to get the sister that he craved into his bedroom. And so this word wise here can be used in a lot of ways. But here, back to back in chapters 13 and 14, we see that the emphasis of this word wise is really crafty and cunning. And it's clear that this woman behaves in a cunning and crafty way. It comes out as she begins to work her magic with King David and tells the story in such a way that she can gain his sympathy. for her difficult situation. Her story lays hold of David's sympathy. She claims to be a widow. Her husband's dead, and she had only two sons. And one of them was killed in a fight that broke out between the two, and now the avenger of blood is after the surviving son. But what's going to happen now if he dies? The woman said it would quench her coal, put out her fire. It would destroy her heart and hope. And it would prevent her dead husband from having descendants. No one would be left. His family tree would come to a dead end. So she is calling David to make a judgment based on how pitiful and undesirable and heart-wrenching is her situation. rather than to make a decision on the basis of truth and what God has said. And what does David do? He's a sympathetic guy. And her story has him right where she wanted. And he caves in to her plea. He will not allow anyone to touch that surviving son. He even goes so far in answer to her request to make a vow invoking the name of the Lord that nothing will happen to this son of hers. And once a vow is made, there is no going back. She got him right where she wanted him, which was where Joab wanted him, which is where Satan wanted him. Then the crafty woman turned to reprove David. Gotcha. She applies the principles with which David considers her case now to the situation involving David and Absalom. And she accuses the king of convicting himself with the decision that he gave regarding her son. And she claims that the king's refusal to bring his banished son home opposes the well-being of the people of God. And so she goes on to say, but did you find this an interesting statement? She said, we all must die. We are like water spilled on the ground which cannot be gathered up again. What is she saying? Well, basically she's contending Amnon is spilled water. He's dead. You can't go back to the ground and gather the water up off the ground and you can't go back and bring Amnon back to life. So what is she saying? Get over it. Get over Amnon. That's in the past. It's been three years. Just get over it. But the woman asserts that there is something that can be done. It can be done in regard to Absalom, the surviving son. And what can be done is that the banished one can be brought home. Now notice the way she puts it. This statement is a central feature in this chapter. She says this, but God will not take away life altogether and he devises means so that the banished one will not remain an outcast. The woman seems to be saying, God doesn't want Absalom to languish. This is a sad situation with this boy, this son of yours. God surely doesn't want Absalom to languish. God doesn't want him to remain an outcast. Now there is truth, some truth at the core of what she says about God. Think about this. Gloriously, God does graciously reconcile sinners. He does devise means so that the banished can come home. But the problem here is that the woman uses the truth that God is merciful to rationalize that his commands should not be followed. Well, since God is merciful, why does it matter whether we follow his word or not? Let's just do what we want to do because God has mercy So that becomes the basis here for David to operate in opposition to the Word of God. Now think about this for a minute. When we turn to the Bible, whose words are some of the ones we quote the most about how God's Word ought to be loved and followed? And how precious it is. Like the sweetness of a honeycomb, more to be desired are they than gold, than much fine gold, sweeter also than honey in the drippings of the honeycomb. The Word of God. But here, there's been a change. At least in the context of being told to get in touch with his feelings, David is turned to the feelings and turned his back to the truth because of the persuasive magic of this so-called wise woman. And the woman, she has David again right where she wants him and she just puts the icing on the cake. The woman augments her persuasion by flattering David. Did you catch that as we were reading through it? She says, he's like the angel of God to discern good and evil. Now who does that sound like? Oh, go back to Genesis 3. That's what the serpent promised Eve. You will be like God knowing good and evil if you eat this. This woman is crafty indeed. She is a deceiver and she wants to make the refusal to follow God's direction so appealing and it worked. David is swayed by the woman's rationale. He realizes it is actually coming from Joab and he instructs Joab then to go to Geshur and bring his son back to Jerusalem. Now the woman's argument has a number of serious flaws. For one, the situation with her two make-believe sons is unlike that with David's. Absalom's murder was premeditated for two years. These two boys didn't get in a fight one day and one overpowered and killed the other. Absalom thought about this day after day after day. And even Jonadab knew about it and he told David, this has been determined since two years ago since Amnon violated Tamar, so this woman, she makes her suggestions so appealing. And yet she's got problems with her reasoning. It is the objective of the woman to appear to be wise, while luring David to reject God's Word and be ruled by his emotions. And there is nothing wise about that. She wants to convince David to believe that what really matters is not justice, but assuaging grief and sorrow. If He will value mercy over justice, then He will show how truly spiritual and godly He is. Now, how much like that woman is so much of the reasoning we encounter in our culture and society, the reasoning of the world? What really matters? This woman's rationale is the prevalent thinking of our culture. Righteousness and justice are not what matter. What matters is that poor sinful people are languishing. And they probably would leave out the word sinful. What matters in our world is that people are languishing because of self-righteous other people who are more concerned about law and order or righteousness and unrighteous rather than how people feel. How accepted they are. They simply need to be accepted. Sin is not nearly as big an issue as love and tolerance. God surely does not expect us to stand on principles of right and wrong that keep people from what they want and make them sad. That would mean taking the position that what people are doing is wrong. Now that's judgmental. And that's not right. And we can know that because of how it feels. This woman talks like the elitists of our day who know better. And they remove their feet from the rock-solid principles of God's Word and they plant them firmly in the mid-air of relativism. They assert that the superiority of human reason, based on human feelings, it is superior than what the Word of God says. So it seems that Joab's plan was to take a page out of God's playbook and hijack it for his own purposes. He seems to be sending the woman to David in the likeness of the way that God sent Nathan to David to confront him. But there is a big difference. Nathan came to David with a story, to be sure. But it was a story that portrayed David through metaphor. And Nathan did not come pretending to be something that he was not. He didn't come to try to manipulate David's feelings. When Nathan came to David, he came as a prophet of God with the Word of God. And in contrast, this woman comes in a disguise. Her story was contrived. She was not confronting David with truth. She was tempting and manipulating him to act against God's Word through the more powerful draw of emotion. And this is not true wisdom. It is foolishness wearing a disguise. Brothers and sisters, we need to be warned by David's poor example. His failure to hold fast to God's Word and enforce justice raises a big caution flag before us. Paul was concerned, as I said about the Corinthians, that they might be led astray through the deception of false teachers that were in a disguise. And we are also exposed to the artful deceptions of Satan in a sin-corrupted world that cares far more about how things feel than what is true. Crafty agents of Satan abound. They're everywhere. They come to us as angels of light, dripping with sentimentality and reasoning that what they suggest is for the best. They call us to compromise truth and righteousness for what will make the world more at peace with us. And when it comes to methods, we are tempted to trust man's wisdom and man's ways. Man-centered religionists will tell us, here's how to grow a church. It's all about how people feel. Play the music they want to hear. Say the things that appeal to them and they will come by the droves. And you will grow a church. A thing in disguise as a church, actually. What humans claim to be wisdom is so often foolishness, pretending to be wise. We need to fear God and keep His Word. It is the testimony of the Lord that makes wise the simple. Never let sentimentality lead you astray from what is true and what is right, because sometimes those feelings will tug awfully hard Children and parents, that's the situation here. And yet Jesus said what? He who loves mother or father more than me, he who loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. You know, it would be so nice, as some would like to tell us, it would be so nice just to believe that everybody is going to heaven and God doesn't really care what we do. That feels good. But it would be dead wrong. So we started with false wisdom. And now we turn to false reconciliation. I secondly want you to see the false reconciliation of David with his son. So David was persuaded to ignore the demands of the law and restore Absalom to Jerusalem. But he consigned him to his own home and withheld divine favor from him so that he still wasn't readily accepted in town. He would not be allowed into David's court. Well, he had been gone for three years and now two more years passed. This is now five years after the incident. And Absalom has had enough. He felt he deserved to be restored to the favor of the king. Now the indicators of Absalom's sense of entitlement, I think they appear to us I think somewhat in these verses that seem strange maybe to have been inserted in chapter 14 verses 25 to 27. The ones that talk about Absalom's hair and how he just cut it once a year, and he would weigh it every time he cut it, because, you know, what is this? Why are we hearing about this? Well, it does set us up for what's going to happen when Absalom gets his hair caught in a tree, but it tells us something about Absalom. Who is known by all the people around as the most handsome man in all the land who cuts his hair once a year and goes and weighs it to see how heavy it is? And then we're told about the family that he had, three sons who apparently died as infants, because later on Absalom had to have had no sons. So he must have had no sons that lived past their earliest years. But we do know that he had a daughter who had a name, and her name was Tamar, which tells us what? He named his daughter after his sister, the one who he was defending so much that he would kill Amnon to get back at, respond for the wickedness that he had done. I think that Absalom is pretty full of himself. And those verses there tell us that. He remained obsessed with what had happened to his sister and he was justified. I think he believed he was justified in what he did. And so Absalom began then to seek an audience with the king. Twice he contacted Joab and Joab did not respond and clearly Absalom thought this was He deserved to be responded to. Twice I called and left a message for you and you didn't get back with me. I texted you once, twice and nothing back from you. So okay, he knew how to get this man's attention. And again, it would seem that he feels quite justified in trying to get Joab's attention. And so Absalom had his servants set Joab's barley field on fire. Now let me just ask you this question. Does that seem like humility to you? Is it not obvious that this is the opposite? That here is a person who thinks quite highly of themselves, and they are going to do whatever it takes to get the attention that they deserve. And so, set your cousin's barley field on fire. Well, now of course, Joab is going to go and find out, what are you doing? What are you up to? Why have you burned my field? And then Absalom's words to Joab come. This is verse 32. Why have I come from Geshur? It would have been better for me to be there still. Now, therefore, let me go into the presence of the king, and if there's guilt in me, then let him put me to death. So Absalom doesn't appreciate that he's been in Jerusalem now for two years, and he can't see the king. And in addition, he seems to think that he's done nothing that deserves death. If there is guilt in me, let him put me to death. If there is guilt, wow, when guilt and sin are overlooked by others, the perpetrators of sin will overlook it as well. Absalom is in the grip of sin, self-defense, and hard-heartedness. Although he is guilty, he basically dares his father to judge him. He should be appealing, but he is demanding. Why should he be appealing? Because he committed murder. and justice would be death. But that's not the way he sees it. He doesn't see himself as needing to repent. He doesn't see himself as needing to confess. He sees himself as deserving an audience with the king. Now notice that Absalom doesn't seek an audience with his father. He seeks an audience with Now, I don't know if I'm stretching this too far, but it seems to me to reflect something about a relationship. You know, when you have kids and they're grown and you have any kind of relationship whatsoever, you want to get together. And you want to be together as father and child. And you want that relationship to be enjoyed. And it would be far less important for a relationship like involving, let's say they worked at the same company and the father was the boss and the son was under the boss. And he simply wanted to come back and talk to the boss, not to his dad. It just feels in the light of all the other stuff that this emphasis on Absalom wanting an audience with the king just seems to suggest that Absalom really wasn't about the relationship at all. He wanted the royal approval. How his father felt about these things, that's irrelevant. How he feels about not having divine favor, that is what matters, and he wants that back. It's about royal recognition. And Joab secures the appointment And then Absalom comes and he bows his face on the ground before the king. And I believe in folly the king kisses his son. The kiss expresses the royal favor that he was searching for. The approval, the acceptance, somehow outwardly expressing your back in line, your back in in a position of approval. And so then Absalom is freed from isolation, and he has the outward stamp of the king's favor. So this scene bears marks of reconciliation. The son bows, and the king kisses. But this is not really reconciliation. It's just a disguise, as so much of the other parts of this text, it's really still alienation. It's just got a mask. It's just got a Halloween costume on. It tries to look like something. It's not. It's fake. It may look like reconciliation, but it's not. The hearts of these two are not knit back together. And if you had any doubts, all you have to do is turn the page and see what Absalom starts to do after he gets the favor, which we'll look at next time. But the hearts of these two are not knit together. There has been no repentance on the part of Absalom and no forgiveness on the part of David, just the sweeping under the rug of all that has happened. That's not reconciliation. This is the final seal now of David's defeat in the case of God's law over the death of Amnon. So disaster for David is just around the corner. The divine consequences for David's sin about which Nathan warned will come about through the ongoing saga of David's own compounded sin. You know what I'm saying there? You know what Nathan said, the bad things Nathan said was going to happen? They didn't come out of nowhere. Where did they come from? David's continued sin and shortcoming, putting his feelings over the Word of God. Now the key lesson for us here is to see that there is a fake kind of reconciliation. It may have the look, but it lacks the substance. Certainly there is fake reconciliation among human beings. If there has been a serious offense, but there's no repentance, then there cannot be true reconciliation. You're just sweeping it under the rug. Genuine reconciliation begins when an offender is willing to own up to their guilt and seek forgiveness. Take for example Jesus' parable of the prodigal. In that parable the lavish and wasteful son takes his inheritance early and goes off to the far country and does everything riotous and wanton and he wastes all of the inheritance that his father had given him. And at last he's got nothing left. And finally, it comes to him that he realizes he would be better off as a slave in his father's house. And so he comes back. He doesn't come back demanding his old room back. He comes back saying, just make me a slave, just make me a servant. And what was his line? Father, I have sinned against you and against heaven. I am no longer worthy to be called your son. And so the father though is waiting and on his way back. When he sees his son, the father runs to him and in the same way that David welcomed Absalom, he gives him kiss. But this is real reconciliation because it involves repentance from the wrong and it involves the weaving back together of a relationship. If there is no repentance and if there is no restoration of relationship and if there is no restoration of relationship, there is no reconciliation. Whatever it is, it is alienation in disguise. Now lastly, I want you to see the true wisdom. The true wisdom of God concerning reconciliation. There's one more point to be made concerning reconciliation and it's the most important point here that relates to this text. When alienation is disguised as reconciliation, the problem is that it misrepresents God's way of restoring sinners to himself. The crafty woman had rightly said that God devises means so that the banished one will not remain an outcast. but she misrepresented his way of restoring sinners. Yes, God restores sinners, but she misrepresented God's way of restoring sinners, and David bought into the misrepresentation. He overlooked justice, and then he showed favor when there was no repentance. Now, God has devised a means for banished sinners to be brought home. This is glorious news because all of us are the banished son because of our sin. We are all absolums and we are languishing. We'd love to be back home. At least I think we'd like to be in what we imagine to be restored relationships and comfort and acceptance with God. But you don't get back into acceptance with God by sweeping your sins under the rug. Or God saying, oh, it's okay, I don't care what you do. God will not do that. God brings sinners to himself. However, he doesn't bring them the way the woman suggested. As Richard Phillips says, God's way of reconciling sinners is not by subjugating the demands of justice to the demands of love. It's not like saying, well forget justice, love wins. No, when God forgives, it is never at the expense of justice. It is never apart either from the sinner's repentance. In the forgiveness of sinners, God does not compromise justice. He brings justice to pass. He satisfies justice. He doesn't just say, well, the law has been broken, okay, we'll just break it again. How is it that God satisfies justice? He satisfies the law's demands by providing a substitute to bear the punishment, and the punishment is meted out. Paul writes the Colossians that God has forgiven us all our trespasses by canceling the record of death that stood against us with its legal demands. But how did he do it? He set it aside, nailing it to the cross. What you see when you see Jesus on the cross is God Having justice, justice and mercy are not enemies, they are friends at the cross. He paid the penalty by his death. God's way of reconciliation is for justice and mercy to meet. So he is just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus. As Isaiah writes, all we like sheep have gone astray. We've turned everyone to his own way and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all. There is therefore now no other name under heaven that has been given among men by which we must be saved." Would you be reconciled to God? Nothing can wash away your sin but the blood of Jesus. You can't sweep it away. It is taken care of by God's punishment of the Lamb. who takes away the sins of the world. So you must turn to that Lamb. You must trust in Christ. But you must also turn from sin. The other key element that was missing in the case of David and Absalom was repentance. Absalom was unrepentant, unremorseful, and unwilling to admit he had done anything wrong. And if you are not willing to admit to God that you have sinned, and if you are unwilling to turn away from those sins, then you cannot be reconciled to Him. One day those gathered around Jesus brought to his attention a terrible case of tragedy. They told him about certain Galileans whose blood Pilate had mingled together with their sacrifices. And Jesus said to them, Do you think that these Galileans were worse sinners than all the other Galileans because they suffered that way? No, I tell you, but unless you repent, you will all likewise perish. Or those eighteen on whom the tower of Siloam fell and killed them, do you think that they were worse offenders than all the others who lived in Jerusalem? No, I tell you, but unless you repent, you will all likewise perish. And then there's Proverbs 28, 13. It says, whoever conceals his transgressions will not prosper, but he who confesses and forsakes them will obtain mercy. So that which appears to be reconciliation but lacks the fulfillment of justice and the humble spirit of repentance is merely alienation in disguise. repent and believe the gospel. Christ Jesus paid the sin debt none other could pay. Those who repent and trust in Him will be reconciled with God. They will be welcomed into the presence of the King. And they will receive the kiss of divine favor and welcome. And they won't want to go out and start trying to become king themselves. They will bow before His throne and submit to Him in loving obedience. Several years ago, we had this game called Bean Boozled. That's B-E-A-N, Bean Boozled. It consisted of jelly belly jelly beans. And some of them were normal delicious flavors like buttered popcorn and watermelon and cappuccino. Meanwhile, others were hideous flavors like barf, rotten egg, stinky socks, Well, you see, what it was was the beans looked the same, but the substance was different. Rotten eggs were disguised as buttered popcorn. You see, something looks like buttered popcorn, the only way to know whether it's rotten eggs or buttered popcorn is put it in your mouth. If it turned out to be the wrong thing. When it comes to jelly bellies, The disguise is harmless. Maybe a bad taste left in your mouth. Just drink some water, it'll go away. Maybe even some fun because laughter accompanied the investigation and attempt to try to figure out which was which when it came to being boozled. But when it comes to wisdom, And when it comes to reconciliation with God, you can't afford to fall for what is merely wearing a disguise of being something that it's not. So let us be sober and watchful lest we are fooled by disguise to the detriment of our souls. It's not about how you feel. It's about what is true. And I will tell you this, truth will lead to the best feelings you will ever have. But you can't determine your solution or the method to accomplish it by how it makes you feel. That's what David did and it is an utter catastrophe. It's what the world wants you to do. And if you follow their advice, it will be utter catastrophe. Let's pray. Our Father in heaven, we are so grateful again for not only the truth of your word, but the imaginative way which through real life, accounting of real events, you have brought these things to our attention. And so we pray today that You would just help us to take the lessons that are so clearly brought out in this bevy of disguises. Thank you that you've not disguised the truth to help us avoid all the other, the false apostles and the false teachers and the false feelings we have that would seek to lead us to something other than the truth because we like the disguise. We pray that you would save those in this room, Lord, who would today just confess their sin and turn from it and trust in Jesus. To you be all the glory in Jesus' name we pray. Amen.