I won't read the entire chapter, but I'll read 2 Samuel 14 verse 1 again. So Joab the son of Zariah perceived that the king's heart was concerned about Absalom. Has there ever been a time in your life where you were knowledgeable of God's word on a matter that you were facing? And it wasn't a question of understanding what you should do, which is often the case in our Christian life. We sometimes don't know what God would have us to do. But have you ever been in a situation where you knew exactly what you were to do? And you were not planning on doing it. You were planning on breaking your conscience. I remember After I graduated from college, and if you were here this morning then you heard me tell you that my time in college was distracting. I was distracted from Christ to say the least. There was a time where I was pursuing a relationship with an unbeliever. This young lady was sweet. And of course, she professed to be a Christian of sorts. And she kind of went to church occasionally, and she was pretty. But she was not a Christian. She wasn't a Christian. She certainly was not walking with the Lord at that time. And I knew that having a relationship with her was unbiblical. It was going nowhere. A relationship of course leads to marriage and God has forbidden Christians to marry unbelievers. And I was in this relationship anyways. I was breaking my conscience. And I remember a time where I had dinner, this was a month or two into the relationship, I had dinner with her and her parents. And in the course of the conversation, of course there's kind people, but in the course of the conversation, it became very evident to me that they were not Christians. And my conscience was throbbing. And I couldn't, by God's grace, I couldn't endure it anymore. I couldn't do it. And of course, you know the story, I'm married to Dorsey, and she's wonderful. I broke off, by God's grace, I broke off the relationship, but I was breaking my conscience for many weeks. Have you ever been in a situation like that? Have you ever known God's will and did something else anyways? Perhaps you have a decision that is facing you in the coming days and you are waffling. What are you going to do? Perhaps you are like me in that story I told and you were in sin. What you needed to do was repent and stop breaking your covenant. Tonight what we have in this chapter is what I call of the conscience breaking process. We have a Christian who goes through a process where he eventually breaks his conscience. He transgresses God's open law. David is the main story, the main character in this... book of the Bible, this historical account of God's people and God saving His people. He commits murder and adultery in chapter 11. He lies about it in chapter 12. The prophet Nathan rebukes him. There's a measure of grace, there's repentance, there's a measure of restoration, but there's an after effect. We saw last week in chapter 13 David's family is in a mess. Amnon, his son, rapes Absalom's sister Tamar. Absalom, he murders Amnon in retaliation. They have this big mess. And David, as the civil magistrate, he's the highest judge He is responsible for rendering judgment, for applying God's law, and he is faced with a dilemma. At the end of chapter 13, Absalom flees. A murderer flees, one who is worthy of death, and David doesn't go after him. And in this chapter, what we have is a process where David eventually does more than just not neglecting his duty. He transgresses. He declares amnesty upon a murderer, someone who was to receive capital punishment. And the lesson here isn't so much for a civil magistrate or someone who's an authority that should render discipline. It's more broad than that. Because we have a lot of narrative here. And God in His wisdom gives us scriptures that are not just legislation, not just parables and things like that. accounts of human experience. We have to ask ourselves, why do we have all this dialogue? Why do we have all this historical narrative? God is showing us something about the conscience breaking process. There are four things that are at play that push David to do what he does in verse 33. I want you to see that. Our lesson tonight The Christian's conscience breaking process involves inordinate affection, reasonable excuses, partial obedience, and disproportionate fear. The Christian's conscience breaking process involves inordinate affection, reasonable excuses, partial obedience, and disproportionate fear. Look with me at verse 1. First we see Inordinate affection. Verse 1, our new King James is a little soft here. The ESV or the NIV is better. David's heart longed for Absalom. It went out to him. We see that in verse 39 of the previous chapter. King David longed to go to Absalom. He certainly loved his son. He had affection for him. He wanted to see, probably, he wanted to see him to repent. He didn't want this terrible situation. How awful is this? He wept. I'm sure some of it was well intended. Affection's a good thing, but it was inordinate. Inordinate being Excessive, unbalanced. David loved Absalom more than he loved God. And there's a couple of reasons for that. One reason is that David, as I said, he is the judge and he has to obey God's word. And as the judge, as the king, he was to execute murderers. Exodus 21. 21, he who strikes a man so that he dies shall surely be put to death. Leviticus 24, 17, whoever kills any man shall surely be put to death. And if we were to scour the Old Testament, we would see that the person who was to do this is the king, the civil magistrate. He's lawfully appointed. And Absalom, Absalom is not repenting. That's another thing that's important. If we could speak hypothetically, I mean David, what did David do? He murdered too. But he also repented and there was mercy there and there was a sacrifice, Psalm 51, for David. Absalom is not repenting and we know that very clearly. If you look at the end of the chapter, how he deals with Joab. Now he talks to Joab, he's not demonstrating a humble, submissive heart. He goes to Joab and he burns his spills and says, listen, I want something. Why don't you give it to me? I want reconciliation. I want to be the crown prince. And as long as David does not acknowledge me into his court, it's going to go to someone else. And then he speaks to Joab in these last few verses here. Verse 32, he says, look, I sent to you saying, come here so that I may send you to the king to say, why have I come from Gesher? It would be better for me to be there still. Now this is the heart of an unbeliever. He would rather be in Gesher, away from the people of God, away from the ordinances of God. He would rather be there than in the holy land with God's people. Notice how he treats sin. Now therefore, this is in verse 32. Now therefore, let me see the king's face. But if there is iniquity in me, let him execute. See how he treats his sin. He's acting like it's no big deal. He's bluffing. He doesn't believe I've really committed iniquity. You see, there's no repentance. He's more concerned about favor with David, favor with man, than favor with God. And he's unrepentant. And yet, what David does is he declares amnesty. There's no repentance. And yet, he kisses him. He gives him the sign, if you were, of peace. What we see here is very important because David is going through a process of breaking his conscience. And what's pushing him and driving him is his love, his inordinate love and affection for his son. I think of the commandment of Christ. Of course, it's implied in the great commandment. You shall love the Lord your God with all of your heart. He has the chief place. And Jesus put it this way, Matthew 10, 37, he who loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me. And he who loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. What's interesting is that this is not wrong in and of itself. I mean, parental love is a good thing. I mean, it would be a good thing for David to at least his heart to go out for him in some sense, to desire him to repent, to not to see this happen, but at the end of the day, obedience is primary. If you love me, Jesus says, you'll keep my commandments. You see, in order and affection, why do Christians, why do Christians break their conscience? Their heart, their heart is being pulled by other things. other than God. I remember Dr. Curtow preaching on Proverbs 4.23 the Sunday after I was ordained and you recall that verse, keep your heart with all diligence for out of it spring the issues of life. Keep your heart. Guard your heart. Ask yourself, what is it that you love? Is it in the right proportion? I mean, you can, again, you can love things that are in itself good, but if it's excessive, if it's inordinate, it might cause you, and will, will cause you to go astray. These are the things that we mortify. Talked about mortification of sin recently in our series in Colossians. Listen, if there's something that you love more than God, stop, put it away, put it away. It's gonna lead you astray. I've told you about, I wanna bring it back up again. I told you about an interpreter that I shared the gospel with in Iraq. You remember that story? I shared the gospel with my interpreters in Iraq, and near the end of the deployment, there was one time where I, it was a powerful private engagement where I shared the gospel with my interpreters, and later they came, one of the interpreters came to me privately, and he said, if I become a Christian, will I have to tell my parents? Will I have to tell my parents? What's the struggle going on? What's the struggle? Am I gonna love my parents? I wanna please them more than God and Christ who saved me from all of my sins. It's an affection issue. Are you guarding your heart? I love all of you, and I don't want you to go astray. And this process of going astray into sin begins with these types of things. I want you to think about what it is that you love, and whether it's inordinate, whether it's excessive, This is the first thing that really is bringing David to this point of crossing the line. Now, it's not the only thing. I think this is a big part of it. the heart, keep your heart with all diligence, for out of it spring the issues of life." I mean, this is a dominating thing for David. He loves his son. It's not the only thing. There's several other things going on. David is looking for an excuse not to have to do this terrible thing. I mean, I hope you're convinced that according to the Old Testament law, David was to execute his son. I hope you're convinced of that. I mean, I'd be looking for an excuse. I know I would be looking for an excuse. I love my children. It's terrible, how hard would that be? I'd be looking for an excuse, and I believe David's doing that in this opening scene. Verses two, really all the way down to verse 23, reasonable excuses. Why do Christians break their conscience? Well, they get a reasonable excuse. That's what happens. David finds an excuse not to do this, and it's reasonable. For several reasons, again, verse 2 to 23, I'm going to cover this fairly quickly. The idea is Joab, Joab is deceptive. We know Joab is a bad guy. He probably is thinking, well, if Absalom can get amnesty, then I will, because I've killed Abner and a bunch of other men, too. So he's motivated by that, and he gets this wise woman. It's almost like a reoccurrence of Nathan the prophet. She comes. She's this wise, probably older woman, and she tells a parable, and then She tells him what she's really talking about, very much like Nathan, and this is the story. There's reasons here for us to see how David is, through Joab and this woman from Tekoa, he gets an excuse, it's reasonable. It's reasonable for a couple things. One, the Bibles appeal to. There's biblical things going on here. The story, the parable, verses five through eight. What the woman portrays is manslaughter. Not the same thing as murder. There's biblical rationale and material for someone who doesn't commit premeditated murder, but just manslaughter. If you look in verse six, and of course we know this has to do with Absalom and Amnon. Now your maidservant had two sons. The two fought with each other in the field, and there was no one to part them, but the one struck the other and killed him. That's not what Absalom did. How is she painting the picture? Oh, think about it. King David, you know, Absalom, well, he was defending his sister. What was terrible, what Amnon did was terrible, and anyone who had love for his sister would do something like this, and it's really not murder. It's more like manslaughter, you see? And what's important is for us to realize there's a connection here. to the Bible. There's a connection. There's a biblical argument being made. Another biblical argument, another excuse. God's mercy. The woman appeals to God's mercy. Now God's merciful, is he not? Is he not merciful? Exodus 34. The Lord God merciful and gracious. It's true. He is merciful. So she says, verse 14, for we will surely die and become like water spilled on the ground which cannot be gathered up. Again, yet God, what's God like? Well, He's merciful. Yet God does not take away a life. He doesn't take away a life. He's merciful, but He devises means so those banished ones are not expelled from Him. God is merciful. Now, I don't know if this is true, but I think of Cain. Think of Cain. What happened to Cain? Was God merciful to Cain? He killed Abel. He didn't kill Cain. The law of God, of course, had not been written in its full detail yet, but perhaps she's appealing to that. I mean, certainly David would know. I mean, he wasn't punished for his murder. That's true. I mean, it's biblical in some sense. There's an excuse here. Something that's going on throughout this whole narrative that makes it also more reasonable is this woman appears to be very godly. She's a wise counselor. She's from Tekoa. She's called wise. She prostrates herself, sign of reverence, verse four. She fell on her face. Joab does the same thing. You know, they're acting very godly. She speaks to him very respectfully. My lord, oh king. I think that's like four or five times in there. Oh my lord, the king, if you'll hear me. She's very respectful. And she's, she's, Crafty. She's crafty, which gives David, and he's looking for an excuse. It helps David see, oh yeah, this is right. I mean, she appeals to his emotions. Listen, if this man, if you allow my family to kill this son of mine, I'll be without an inheritance. I'll have no means of anyone taking care of me. Verse seven. So they would extinguish my ember that is left and leave to my husband neither name nor remnant on the earth. She appeals to his wisdom. She flatters him. All throughout, there's several places where she flatters him. You're like the angel of God. You're very wise. Oh king, you know everything that's going on in your kingdom. You're knowledgeable. Certainly you knew that Joab wasn't behind this. Verse 19, all this helps David soften his conscience. Now that's what reasonable excuses do. They soften the conscience. That's what they do. You know, you find a reason to do something that's really not biblical. Now, I want you to think about that for a moment. I want you to think about that moment. Kids, you might be tempted, young children, you might be tempted to hurt your brother or your sister. And after all, they did it first. You kind of got an excuse to do that. There's all types of excuses people make. You can appeal to the fact that, well, I go to church, I go to church every Sunday, One Sunday isn't a big deal. I'm faithful otherwise. Reasonable excuses. I want you to pause for a moment. What David needs to do here is he needs to stop and he needs to pray. He needs to think, get counsel. It's very easy for Christians to find an excuse and latch onto it and go, pause, wait. David didn't pray. David didn't seek counsel. Well, maybe this is manslaughter. Where's the Levite? Where's the prophet Nathan? That's what you wanna do. Oftentimes in the Christian life, we do struggle with, well, what's the right thing? Maybe this is an excuse. Maybe this is biblical. Pause. Be aware that many times, it's not always the case, and I want you to know that, it's not always the case, but many times the easy thing to do is not the right thing to do. I think of Matthew 7, 13 through 14. Think about this verse in that light. Enter by the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the way that leads to destruction. There are many who go in by it because narrow is the gate and difficult, difficult is the way which leads to life. And there are few who find it. There are few who find it. Reasonable excuses, stop, pray. Search out what you should do. Get counsel. That's what David didn't do. And that's what God's people should do. It's easy. If you don't do that, you'll find, you'll find an excuse. And I'm sure it'll have some type of biblical reference, just like David has some type of biblical reference. This is something that softens the conscience. David's conscience is softening. Oh, that's a good excuse. Now there's something else that happens here. And it's partial obedience. And partial obedience functions like reasonable excuses. They go to soften the conscience. To soften God's word and allow Christians to just kind of slip on by. There's partial obedience here. That's verse 24 and verse 28. So, he says, go get him. Okay? Job goes. And in the meantime, David's struggling here. Because what he tells Joab, what's implied is full reconciliation. In the meantime, I don't know how long it took him to go to Geshur and bring back Joab. But verse 23 says, So Joab arose and went to Geshur, and brought Absalom to Jerusalem. And David's conscience is bothering him. And so what he's going to do is he's going to obey partially. I'm not going to punish Absalom like I should, but I'll do a half right. I'll do a half right. I won't punish him like I should, but I will punish him. He's been exiled for three years and I'm going to exile him again. Except this time it'll be in Jerusalem. Verse 24, and the king said, let him return to his own house, but do not let him see my face. So Absalom returned to his own house, but did not see the king's face. We read in verse 28 that Absalom dwelt two full years in Jerusalem. That's a punishment and it is in some sense the right direction, but it's really not the right thing to do at all. It allowed David to kind of deal with it more. I don't want to have to do what I know I should do. Now partial Partial obedience is still full disobedience. And the reason for that is because it's done with a rebellious heart. Now, the thing that you've got to realize here, and this is what I want to be clear, I'm not talking about those times where you and I Do not fully obey God in the sense of like, you know, I get upset with my kids sometimes, and I need to confess that and repent of that, but I'm trying. I don't want to be upset with my kids, okay? I'm talking about deliberately saying, I'm not going to do the whole thing, I'll just do most of it. It's a difference. It's not submission. If you want to know what obedience is, you could define it as submission. James says, therefore submit to God Submit to God partial obedience. All types of ways God's people can soften the conscience just by obeying partially. I could give many examples. But I want you to think about, especially if you're going through something right now, beware of partially obeying and not actually doing what you know you need to do. Partial obedience softens the conscience. Well, there's one other factor that I want you to see tonight. It causes David to finally and fully break his conscience. And that is disproportionate fear. We see here an ordinate affection, reasonable excuses, partial obedience, and disproportionate fear. And before I go into this, I want you to know something. In the military, It's very useful to know how the enemy operates. It's very useful to know the lay of the battlefield. I want you to know the lay of the battlefield. I want you to remember that God has given us human experience. He's teaching us something. We need to get into the mind of David. We don't want to make the same mistakes as David. I want you to think about these things. Disproportionate fear. What's going on with David, and I'll show you this biblically in a moment, is that he fears man more than he fears God. He fears man more than he fears God. And there's a couple of reasons why you need to know that's what's going on in David's heart and his mind. Now, the woman of Tekoa hints at it in verse 15. She says, now, therefore, I have come to speak of this thing to my Lord, the King, because the people have made me afraid. Now, we aren't certain about this, but it's very probable that this woman and Joab were afraid that this dynasty was about to crumble, and they were gonna lose their interest in it. Certainly, Joab would have had an interest in David. Okay, in other words, what's about to happen in the next chapter? A revolt, a revolution, a large chunk of Israel goes after who? They follow Absalom. They don't follow David. They're upset. Don't be unjust, David. Chill out. Here's the crown prince. He's really attractive, by the way. We really like him. I mean, that's why we have verses 25 through 27. The narrator is telling us something. about David's situation. Now in all Israel there was no one who was praised as much as Absalom for his good looks. It's not just that he had good looks. It's not just that he had a lot of hair that probably was about two to three pounds after he cut it. It's not just that he had a beautiful family, beautiful daughter and sons. What a great next king. Which just real quick, That should put alarms up, okay? Saul, he was beautiful too. Bad king. God's people should never think about just the outside when it comes to their officers. It's just with the inside that matters. But it's not just that Absalom's attractive. It's that Israel is praising him. They like him. You see? You see what's going on? I want you to see what's going on. David is under pressure. What's gonna happen? Here's David's, this is what David's thinking. Well, I can't kill them because then what are they going to do? What is Israel going to do? See, it's the fear of man. He's not thinking about what is God going to do. What is God going to do? I think that there's, in some sense, This is not, it's very original. I mean, God's people, pastors, colluded. I think that in many ways we don't understand the gospel. And we struggle to really understand forgiveness and God's power in saving his people through Christ. But there's another way, there's another sense in which I think one of the great struggles for God's people is they don't fear God. They don't fear God. And I'm talking about Christians. I'm talking about you, you being forgiven. Does God punish his people? Is God's fatherly chastisement comfortable? It's not comfortable. What's gonna happen to David? A lot of bad things are gonna happen to David, because he doesn't fear God more than man. 2 Samuel 18, verse seven. 20,000, 20,000 men. and Israel are killed by a battle that he's gonna have with Absalom. A lot of bad things are gonna happen. I want you to ask yourself whether or not you have a healthy reverence, respect, and fear for God and his law. The fear of man brings a snare, but whoever trusts in the Lord shall be safe. Young people, Peer pressure. What's peer pressure? What's peer pressure? It's the fear of man. I mean, I've been there. And it's not just for people in high school or in school. It's adults too, in the workplace. Well, if I do that, I'll be made fun of. I'm that crazy religious guy who loves Jesus. Fear of man. What do young people often do? They decide to break their conscience because they want to be accepted. They fear being rejected. It's the fear of man rather than the fear of God. This is the process in which David is going through and it's the process in which you and I are going through. I want you to think about these things. I want you to understand the battleground. The Christian's conscience-breaking process involves inordinate affection, reasonable excuses, partial obedience, and disproportionate fear. Your congregation, what do you do if you're in the middle of this? What do you do? Well, you turn to the Lord Jesus Christ. He saves you. He saves you. He changes your heart. He enables you to obey. I want you to think about Psalm 55, 22. Here you are, and you're thinking about breaking your conscience. Cast your burden upon the Lord, and He will sustain you. He will sustain you. You may face temporary pains, but He'll sustain you. He'll never let His people to be moved. He shall never permit the righteous to be moved. He's faithful to you, and he wants you to trust him. That's what he wants you to do. You got all this going on, and he wants you to trust him. Cast your burden upon the Lord, and he shall sustain you. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we come to you tonight as your people, The life of David is sad. The life of David is difficult to understand. Father, we ask that you would help us to learn from him. We ask that you would enable us to learn from him and to not make the same mistakes. Father, we are thankful that unlike him, we have your Holy Spirit in our hearts in a greater way. and that you're working in us. We ask that you would help us to know our hearts, to see our spiritual battleground, to be aware of these things, and to trust you, to trust you no matter what pain may come our way, to trust your word, to make sure we are following it. We ask for grace to stay faithful to you, for we ask in Jesus's name, amen.