The sermon text is 2 Samuel 16 verses 15 all the way to verse 23 of chapter 17. I'll read the first verse again. Meanwhile Absalom and all the people, the men of Israel came to Jerusalem and Ahithophel was with him. A few weeks ago I had a problem on my hands. I was attempting to do some home improvements in my house, in my garage, and perhaps this was a little bit more than just kind of a normal home improvement that a man would do on a newly bought house. And I kind of was a little bit over my head, and I didn't quite have the means to do what I needed to do. I didn't have the tools. But I figured there was someone who may or may not be in this congregation, in this room, who did have those tools. And so I called this man up and I said, hey, here's my situation, and I really don't have the means to handle this problem. I don't know how I can actually work through this. And without a doubt, he said, hey, just come on over. I got what you need. And I came over to his house and went to his garage. And I'm sure there's probably someone who has more tools than he does, but his garage was just full of tools. He had a bench and there was equipment there, and he had a stud finder. I needed a stud finder. He had one of those big wrenches that you really can just kind of pull down on, and he had a big screw that I needed to put in my power drill. And he had a bunch of other stuff too. He probably had what I needed twice over. And I know that the parallel is not perfect, so excuse this. But God is like that. And that he has many tools. Many different means that he uses to do what he wants, to do what he intends, to fulfill his good purpose. In fact, the Bible teaches that he actually uses all things, all things. You who know your catechism, what are God's works of providence? What are God's works of providence? God's works of providence are His most holy, wise, powerful, preserving, and governing all of His creatures and all of their actions. God uses all of these things. And it's important for us to know this, to think about this, because you may be in a situation now where you're wondering if God is at work. Maybe you can identify with David in this passage. Things are not going well for you. Is God involved in my life? Is God involved in my life? How is it? How can it be that God is? I mean all these things are happening that are bad in my life. Maybe you're like David and you're like, what's going to happen? If you've read the Bible more than once you know what's going to happen. But David doesn't necessarily know that. What we see in this passage is the fact that God is at work. He's at work and He's at work in your life. You know, whether things are going well, whether things are going bad. He's even at work in sinful situations. This is an emphasis in this passage. I took this passage of Scripture. I believe that the intention of the Holy Spirit in this passage is more or less around verse 14. The second part of verse 14 says, "...for the Lord had purposed to defeat the good advice of Ahithophel." to the intent that the Lord might bring disaster on Absalom. God's at work. He's got a plan. He has a purpose. And it does not just involve this advice, but Hithophel would be even in that situation, this bad situation. God's at work. I want you to see this and I want to reflect on some of these things because it's important to us, especially if you're like David. You're going through a difficult situation. The lesson that I want to teach on this evening is that God uses exceptional, normal, and even sinful means. Okay, tools. Even sinful means to bring about His good purpose. God uses exceptional, normal and even sinful means to bring about his good purpose. I want to bring this lesson to you, this fairly large passage, to you under three points tonight. First I want you to see exceptional means. God uses exceptional means and we see that mainly with Hushai. Hushai is an exceptional character. We'll also see it with Zadok in ABA for the priests. Hushai has exceptional gifts, and exceptional courage, and exceptional faith. He is an exceptional person. He's very gifted. And we see that in the way he speaks to Absalom. Verses 15 through 19, he gains his trust. How he gains his trust. And then verses 7 of chapter 17, all the way to verse 14, how he advises him there. What's interesting about Hushai, is how he handles himself winsomely without lying. I want you to see that in verse 15 through 19 he doesn't lie. Now lying is a sin. Speaking something that's not true with your mouth. It's clearly a A sin. You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor. Exodus 20, 16. Notice how Hushai handles himself. Absalom's surprised. This is verse 15 and onward of chapter 16. Hushai goes back to Jerusalem. He obeys David's command to serve him there. Absalom's surprised to see Hushai. He knows he's David's friend. Hushai says, long live the king. Long live the King. And that is absolutely true. It's Absalom's fault that he interprets it the way he interprets it. And that's how this passage goes. Hushai shows exceptional winsomeness to come near to Absalom to earn his trust without lying. I mean, you could go, it's basically the same idea all the way 17 through 19. He says that in verse 18, And that's David. David's the Lord's anointed. David is who the Lord has chosen. And he's going to serve him. He's going to serve David in the presence of David. He's going to serve David in the presence of Absalom. Very cunning. And I want you to see that. You need to realize that Hushai is very winsome. He's exceptional. I could not have done this. I don't think on my feet like that. This guy does. He's a wise man. No negative connotation here. He's a wise politician. He does the same thing in verses 7 through 14 in his second advice, his second conversation with Absalom. He earns Absalom's trust. And then verses 17-14 he thwarts a man who was very respected. Who actually had better advice as far as the earthly circumstances go. And he was able to change the situation. He used logic. He used caution. He appealed to Absalom's pride. If we go through the list here. You'll notice that he challenges Ahithophel, but with a little bit of grace. Ahithophel, verse 17, he says, The advice that Ahithophel is given is not good at this time. It's a punch, but it's not too strong. He recognizes Ahithophel's wisdom otherwise. He appeals to logic. Listen Absalom, David, your father, is a warrior. That's smart. That makes sense. It was true. It wasn't a lie. David was weak at the moment, but he was a mighty warrior, and those men that were with him were valiant men. It's logical. He appeals to caution. Listen, don't... Don't overextend yourself. They're going to hear that there's a little bit of a scuffle, a little bit of a loss, and people are going to lose heart. You need to make sure you gather everyone. And this is also appealing to Absalom's pride and his arrogance. Absalom's all about himself. Absalom's unconverted. He lacks faith in Yahweh. He's all about himself. He doesn't seek the counsel of God. He seeks the counsel of men only. He's all about himself. And he says, listen, Hithovel says that he'll lead the battle. I think you should lead the battle. I think you should gather all of Israel. And Absalom's thinking, oh yeah. I like that. That sounds good. And we won't just kill David. We'll kill all of his loyal followers. Verse 13 is a little bit of a... some irony, appealing again to their pride, as if they were going to actually pull a city into the river. Husher is appealing to his audience. He's actually smarter than Ahithophel, if you really think about it. He has exceptional gifts. I'm going to bring this full circle here in a moment. But I first want for you to realize Whenever we're dealing with the history, this is history, okay? This is the history of the church. This is the history of human experience. This is the history of those who faced struggles and they acted on faith. Hushai and also Zadok and Abiathar have exceptional courage and faith. They are putting themselves in harm's way. You recall, two chapters ago, they met David across the, I believe it was the Kidron Valley, and he said, listen, go back into Jerusalem and serve me there. Listen, think about this for a moment. What did Saul do to priests that helped David? The priests of Nob, okay, they gave a sword to David, and Saul killed them all, killed the whole city. Here's Zadok and Abiathar. Aslan knows that they're, if you will, quote unquote, they're tight with David. They're his friends. They're running an underground spy network here. They're doing it in faith. And it requires great courage. I mean, Hushai, this whole conversation, this dialogue, I mean, it's a nail-biter. When is someone going to figure it out? Hushai had to endure all that. Exceptional courage, exceptional gifts. I want you to think about that in light of providence, in light of your situation, in light of how you serve the church, especially in Christ, especially if you're here and you are gifted and you are in an important position. And I want you to think about this. You know, Eric Little. Eric Little, gold medalist, ran the 400-meter dash years ago. He was influential for Christ as an evangelist because he could run fast. He was exceptional and it mattered. He used that for God's glory. He trained as hard as he could for God's glory. I think of J. Gresham Machen. I mentioned to him to you weeks ago, if not months, this man who founded Westminster Seminary in the 30s. who began the Orthodox Presbyterian Church. During that liberal debate in our country in the 20s and 30s, people were challenging the authority of scripture. These very academic, these smart liberals in Germany challenging the authority of scripture. And J. Gresham Machen was exceptionally gifted. Because he could actually interact with those intellectual arguments. Except he had faith, unlike these liberals. And to say that God needed Hushai, and to say that God needed Liddell and Machen is too strong of a word, but he certainly used them. And to not recognize that is silly. I mean, David would not have told Hushai and Zadok and Abiathar to do what they did if they were not equipped for that. They had not, in some sense, trained their whole life and grown in their faith and used their gifts to serve the Lord. What I want you to think about is it matters as Christians to be exceptional. It matters to strive, to use your gifts, to do all that you do, as it were, heartily. You can approach it from this perspective, especially if you're gifted. Well, I'm doing more than the person next to me. They might not be as gifted like you. To whom much is given, much is expected. Strive. I mean, God used Husha. He was very wise. God used J. Gresham. He may be calling you to strive. Especially if you are exceptional. You have much given to you. Much gifts. Much faith. It matters. It matters. God uses exceptional people. And we need to see that and we need to strive to serve the Lord in difficult situations. Proper for Christians who are highly gifted, who have been given many spiritual gifts, who have grown in a Christian home, and have heard good preaching all their lives to say, well, I'm doing better than this new convert that came to Christ a year ago. You've been given much. Much is expected. And you are, by God's grace, enabled to do greater things as Hushai was. Exceptional means. I also want you to see, secondly, normal means. How God uses normal people doing normal things in a sense exceptional way. Because you may be here tonight and you may think to yourself, well I'm definitely not a hushah. I don't have great gifts. I came to know the Lord relatively recently. Am I important? I mean, am I even, maybe not so much important, but am I used of God? Does God use me? Does my life matter? And I want you to see that it does matter. God uses normal means. And this comes in large part from verses 15 on down to verse 22. We see normal means, and this is a basic point, I just want to touch on it briefly. We as Christians who believe that God is almighty and sovereign over all things. That does not mean that we don't act. And we don't use common sense and do what we do. Hushai is using messengers. Listen, David needs to know something. I'm not going to just say, well, God's going to give David an epiphany. He needs to be told. Get the spy chain going. Get the informant chain going. He's using messengers. He uses normal means. He crosses the river. He doesn't just say, well, God will protect me. You know, listen, lock your doors at night, okay? God uses those iron bolts to keep you safe. Normal means. And I could go on. You know, the lady, they use a well, okay? Oh, there's a well. I probably should hide in it. Using those type of normal means. But also, I want to really focus in on the fact that there are normal people who are in their just ordinary life being mightily used. They're part of this chain, okay? And they're not the weak link. They're part of this chain to preserve the Lord's anointed, David. You have an unnamed female servant in verse 17. Now listen, the Bible is inspired. God has inspired every word. And the way He's inspired this scripture is not dictation. Whoever wrote this didn't just hear a voice and write it down. God inspired men to write in their normal language. And this is an unnamed person. And that's telling us that they're normal. They're ordinary. They don't even deserve their name to be in the Holy Scripture. A female servant. She was part of that chain. She could have messed up the message. She could have lost faith. She didn't. Think about this man in verse 18. So these two priests, the sons of Zadok and Abiathar, verse 17, Jonathan and Ahimaz. Okay, they're on a mission. And suddenly something happens and they realize they need to hide. And so they come to this man's house in Bahrain, just a man. This normal man happens to be a David, a loyalist, not named. This man had to have faith. Okay, I mean he knew what was going on. Listen, if these informants get found, he's getting whacked. Just a normal guy. Probably didn't know this was going to happen today. Probably was out in his field. Just doing his normal thing and he allowed it to happen. He encouraged it to happen. He hid the message. Think of this woman, verse 19. Another unnamed person. Just a normal person. She hid these people. I'll come back to the woman in a moment. Just a normal person. God uses normal people. I want you to think about this. Especially if you're here, and you think, and it may be true, that you're not gifted. Okay, I don't have great gifts. I don't have an important position. I don't make a lot of money. You know, I don't have power in the city or whatever. Just a normal person. God uses you. He's using you. Here's something I want you to think about. Especially if you're saying to yourself, well I don't have a lot of gifts. I'm kind of disappointed. It could be sinful that you're coveting gifts or something like that that God hasn't given you. But I want you to notice something. Hushai had great gifts. He also had faith. And that's what he's calling you to do. These normal people had faith. They believed in what was going on. They put their trust in God. Think about this for a moment. This is encouraging. Normal people can do important things. 1 John 5, 4. And this is the victory that has overcome the world. What's the victory that's overcome the world? Our gifts? Our good looks? Our fast legs? Our faith? You want to serve the Lord Jesus Christ? Be faithful in where you are, doing what you do. I remember when I was in Iraq as an infantry platoon leader, I had a soldier who would stay right next to me. He was called my radio telephone operator. I would listen to the radio that was connected to my subordinate squad leaders, and he would listen to the radio that was my company commander. And maybe a helicopter or something. And he had a, he was a private first class. This was his first job out of basic training. He was a normal guy. But he had an important, he just needed to listen to the radio and he would, you know, he would tap me. Hey sir, Charlie Six, your commander's on the radio. Hey, you forgot to tell this person what to do. Go back to that. Hey sir, just a normal guy doing, and there's lots of times where it was really important. Really important. Are you that radio telephone operator? Are you that unnamed female servant? Do you have faith? You're buying groceries. You're teaching your kids. You're going to work every day of the week. It's kind of normal. I think of preaching. It's a normal thing. I do it twice a day on Sunday. But it may be the means God uses to save someone. Or to turn back a wandering Christian from the error of his way. I think of Joel and all the tracts that he passes out. Who knows? One of those tracts might bring someone to eternal life. And Joel's just doing something normal. You see people in your neighborhood. And you come in contact with them. You just give a word of encouragement. You say some spiritual truth to them. That may start a conversation that really wakes up their soul. Just normal. Normal faith, normal people doing important things. God uses normal means to bring about His good purpose. Normal means to bring about His good purpose. Now what's interesting about this passage of scripture is that there's a lot of sin in it. A lot of bad disaster type stuff in it. How do we make sense of this? What kind of God do we worship? And what kind of God do we serve? Well, I want you to see that God uses even sinful means to bring about His good purpose. And we need to see that. It's a bit of a mystery. Well, I should say that again. It is a mystery. We understand it enough to believe and for it not to be irrational. It's beyond reason, but it's not irrational. I want you to see that. And again, verse 14 is very central here. God doesn't work. Now we see this in a couple of ways. Ahithophel, verse 20 of chapter 16 all the way down to verse 23 and also verse 23 of chapter 17. We see it in his advice from chapter 17 verse 1 all the way to verse 6. God's using sinful means. Now Ahithophel told Absalom to go into his father's concubines. This is obviously a sin. It's Ahithophel's sin and it's Absalom's sin. This is a fulfillment of prophecy though. We need to see that. In fact, 2 Samuel 12, 12, Nathan says to David, for you did it secretly, referring to Bathsheba, but I, but I will do this thing before all Israel, before the sun. God is at work even in sinful ways. He's not a sinner. God's not a sinner. He's not culpable for sin. But the devil is the God's devil. You're in a situation that has sin all around it. God is not absent from that. I think of Genesis 50 verse 20 with Joseph. Something I've mentioned before. Joseph's brothers sold Joseph into slavery. That's a sin, obviously. This is what Joseph tells him, but as for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good. God still had to work. We can't understand it all. It's not irrational, it's just beyond reason. We see the same thing in verses 1-6. Ahithophel, I won't go into all this, but he gives good advice. Verse 14 says it's good advice. Ahithophel was a wise military politician. David was weak, go and attack him. I'll do it right now tonight, we'll settle this once and for all. But it's interesting. Who's at work here? The text doesn't say it, but we know what's going on here. Absalom, for some reason, even though there's unanimous consent on what to do, he says, hey, call Hushai. Hushai's not even in the court. And he calls Hushai in. Who is doing that? Who's at work? Who's thwarting the kings of the earth to protect his anointing? It's God. God's at work. Proverbs 21.1, the king's heart is in the hand of the Lord. Like the rivers of water, he turns it wherever he wishes. That's comforting. God's at work. There was a disaster, more or less, that happened to someone in this congregation. And in that person's life, it was close to them. And the question is, how do we make of this? Sudden death. Well, God's at work. We don't always understand it. We trust that God is wise. He's wiser than us. He knows what's good for us. I want to also point out another sinful means that's got enormous practical application for us. And it's the idea of lying. The idea of lying. Look at verse 19 of chapter 17. Then the woman took and spread a covering over the well's mouth and spread ground grain on it, and the thing was not known. When Absalom's servants came to the woman at the house, they said, Where are Ahamaz and Jonathan? So the woman said to them, They have gone over the water brook. Now how do we understand this? It's a legitimate question. I mean, how do we understand this? This is a lie. It's a false truth. She's speaking things out of her mouth that are not true. They're in the well. Is there such a thing as a justified lie? How do we understand this? Now, I believe that there is no such thing as a justified lie. I think we should understand this as another example of God's mercy and how He uses sinners in imperfect faith. Now this is an interesting question to ask and we know that we should not speak a lie. The Bible says not to lie. Exodus 20,16, I quoted that already. You shall not circulate a false report. Do not put your hand with the wicked to be an unrighteous witness." Exodus 23.1. Ephesians 4.25. Therefore putting away lyingly, each one of you speak truth with his neighbor, for we are members of one another. The Bible does not say that you are obligated to tell all that you know. The Bible actually commends concealment. If you think about it, we do it a lot. You are not obligated to say everything that is true. There are some things that are not appropriate to say. Even if someone asks you a question. So I am not condemning that. I don't think the scriptures condemn military maneuvering that's deceptive. It's not a military commander's fault that his opponent, his enemy, misunderstands his movements. The Bible commands that. God commands that type of behavior. That's not speaking of false truth. God doesn't command us to... It's one thing to mix error with truth. It's another thing to only say half truth. distinctions that I'm covering quickly. There's a lot to be said about this. But I want to go into this a little bit for a couple of reasons. For one, it's helpful for us to understand scripture. How do we understand this? After all, the messengers were saved. Doesn't that validate actions? Well, not necessarily. I also want you to think about this for two other reasons. One, If you're like me, sometimes you can worry and fret when it's only your decision. In other words, if there's such a thing as a justified lie, well then on what basis are you going to say that you can say that? I can tell my kids this, even though it's not true, because, oh well, it's not really that big a deal. Well, that's burdensome. I mean, just know that you are never to say with your mouth something that's not true. It's relieving to me. I found it to be very relieving. You know, if I was this woman or if I was a faithful Christian in Germany, I had Jews in my house. I mean, all these situations, it applies. But I also want to say this, going back really more to this theme of my text, is I want you to realize that these messengers were saved. They were preserved. And that this woman, God used this woman, even in sin. Think about that. God uses His people who have weak faith, that are weak in their understanding, what He's commanded them. He still uses them. He's gracious. He's merciful. That is so encouraging to me. Think about it for a moment. Does the salvation of your children depend upon... perfect parenting or does God use sinful parents? I'm not encouraging flippancy. You know I'm not doing that. That encourages me. Listen, if you had to have a perfect sermon or a perfect pastor to hear God's message, to be blessed, you would not have been blessed the whole time I've been here. Okay? I mean, preaching is God-glorifying and it's wonderful. But preachers can have selfish ambition in their heart. And it's encouraging to me, not to encourage sin, but God's gracious. You know, I don't know if you have this problem, but sometimes I think to myself, you know, we're kind of a peculiar church. Okay? You know, we have an evening service. Most people don't have an evening service. We sing from this blue book. You know, we don't have instruments and stuff. We're kind of odd. You know, not every church is Presbyterian and all these different peculiarities. We're not the only true church in Fresno. You know, if we're right about all this, and we don't know that infallibly, we're not the only ones pleasing God. You know, for that matter, our worship is not perfect as we do. We sin in it as well, and we can have perfect church government and still sin, and God uses sinners. How encouraging. I was speaking to a pastor about counseling a couple of weeks ago now. It was on marriage. It was just a book on marriage. He said that I should read it. He goes, well, this person has got a lot of bad theology, but the book is really good. Just read it. Just kind of ignore the background. What he says is actually really good. Because God uses people who have imperfect theology and who don't do everything perfectly. That's encouraging to me. I want you to see how God brings about His good purpose. He uses exceptional, normal, and even sinful means to bring about His good purpose. And His purpose and His plan, as I close, is good. It is good. Even if it's difficult. It is good. He's working all things for good to those who love Him, to those who are called according to His purpose. I've mentioned three areas. He's at work in all things. Ephesians 1.11, in him also we have obtained an inheritance being predestined according to the purpose of him who works, not just salvation according to his purpose, but who works all things according to the counsel of his will. And what God wants you to do, he wants you to have faith. He's calling you to exercise faith. You may be an exceptional Christian. You may be a normal Christian. You may be in a sinful situation. He's calling you to trust Him. He is at work. He's got all the tools that anyone could ever want in his toolbox. He's bringing about His good purpose and He's calling you to faith. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we lift our hearts to you tonight. We praise your name. We thank you. We are in a particular situation like David. We identify with him. We're under duress. We're trying to please you in our life. We don't always know what to do. We don't always know what's going to happen. We ask you to be with us. We ask you to comfort us. We ask you to give us faith, knowing that you are at work. You're at work in many different ways. We ask that your purpose, your good purpose would come about, that you would use us, that you would be gracious and merciful to even use us to that end. We pray that all that we do would glorify you. And again, we ask, Lord, for faith. We pray in Jesus' name, amen.