Let's open our Bibles in 2 Samuel, chapter 13. Book of 2 Samuel, chapter 13. You're gonna read verses 1 through 22. It's page 336 in your pew Bible. This says the word of the Lord. Now Absalom, David's son, had a beautiful sister whose name was Tamar. And after a time Amnon, David's son, loved her. And Amnon was so tormented that he made himself ill because of his sister Tamar, for she was a virgin. And it seemed impossible to Amnon to do anything to her. But Amnon had a friend, whose name was Jonadab, the son of Shimea, David's brother. And Jonadab was a very crafty man. And he said to him, O son of the king, why are you so hungry morning after morning? Will you not tell me? Amnon said to him, I love Tamar, my brother Absalom's sister. Jonadab said to him, lie down on your bed and pretend to be ill. And when your father comes to see you, say to him, let my sister Tamar come and give me bread to eat, and prepare the food in my sight that I may see it and eat it from her hand. So Amnon laid down and pretended to be ill. And when the king came to see him, Amnon said to the king, please let my sister Tamar come and make a couple of cakes in my sight that I may eat from her hand. Then David sent home to Tamar, saying, Go to your brother Amnon's house and prepare food for him. So Tamar went to her brother Amnon's house, where he was laying down, and she took dough and kneaded it and made cakes in his sight and baked the cakes. And she took the pan and emptied it out before him, but he refused to eat. And Amnon said, Send out everyone from me. So everyone went out from him. Then Amnon said to Tamar, Bring the food into the chamber that I may eat from your hand. And Tamar took the cakes she had made and brought them into the chamber to Amnon her brother. But when she brought them near him to eat, he took hold of her and said to her, Come, lie with me, my sister. She answered him, No, my brother, do not violate me, for such a thing is not done in Israel. Do not do this outrageous thing. As for me, where could I carry my shame? And as for you, you would be as one of the outrageous fools in Israel. Now, therefore, please speak to the king, for he will not withhold me from you. But he would not listen to her, and being stronger than she, he violated her and lay with her. Then Amnon hated her with very much hatred, very great hatred, so that the hatred with which he have hated her was greater than the love with which he had loved her. And Amnon said to her, Get up, go. But she said to him, No, my brother, for this wrong in sending me away is greater than the other that you did to me. But he would not listen to her. He called a young man who served him and said, put this woman out of my presence and bolt the door after her. Now she was wearing a long robe with sleeves, for those were the virgin daughters of the king dressed. So his servant put her out and bolted the door after her. And Tamar put ashes on her head and tore the long robe that she wore. And she laid her hand on her head and went away crying out loud as she went. And her brother Absalom said to her, has Amnon, your brother, been with you? Now hold your peace, my sister. He is your brother. Do not take this to heart. So Tamar lived a desolate woman in her brother Absalom's house. When King David heard of all these things, he was very angry. But Absalom spoke to Amnon neither good nor bad, for Absalom hated Amnon because he had violated his sister Tamar. Let us go before our God in prayer one more time. Oh Holy Spirit, we ask your blessing upon the preaching of your word now. You might convict our hearts and help us in the way that we need, that each one of you need. In Jesus' name we pray, amen. In the preparation for this sermon, I've heard many other sermons in this text. And what struck me was that 90% of them started with the preaching saying something along those lines. We come now to chapter 13 of 2 Samuel, and thanks be to God that we are doing a series on the book of Samuel. Otherwise, we will never get to this text. And as I heard those introductions over and over again, I wondered, why would anyone avoid this chapter? Why would a preacher not want to preach a text like this? As we look to our world, we will see that what happened here in this chapter, unfortunately, It's something that still happens today. It still happens with many innocent boys and girls. It still happens with many innocent women who live in Christian homes. With children and young people who go to church. This outrageous thing still happens to many precious and weary souls even today in our churches. And I don't want to throw a statistics on you, but the number of sexual abuse victims is high even among conservative churches. And some would say especially in conservative churches. The thing is that we simply don't see this. We don't hear about it very often. And why? Because it is shameful. It is degrading. So people want to just avoid it. Not only the victims, but also those around the victims. So this becomes an unspoken problem. However, brothers and sisters, unspoken problems will always become unsolved problems. Unspoken trials will always end up becoming ongoing struggles. Unspoken problems will turn into open scars that will never be healed. So we need to talk about this because it is a real problem. It is a real problem, something that happens among the Church of Christ. We cannot just fold our eyes and simply pretend that this doesn't happen. Secondly, we need to talk about this because it is addressed in the Word of God. So if it is in the Word of God, we need to pay attention to it, give ears to this. And also, this is important because people need actual healing. People need to be healed from this evil. So tonight, I would like to look at this text with this emphasis, looking at the sinfulness of sexual abuse, of rape. I want you to see how this evil happens, what causes this evil, and how to avoid it. Not only this, but also how to respond to it. Not only as an individual, but also as a church community, as a church body. And finally, I want you to learn how to help victims heal from this evil committed against them, how to come alongside with them and minister to them. And right away, I want to make clear that the only way to be healed from this evil is by the power of the cross, by the redemptive work of the Lord Jesus Christ and His Holy Spirit. That's the only cure for this evil. Christ is the answer in every situation, even in this one, this particular one. So we will take a look in this chapter in five points. First, the plan. Second, the trap. Third, the dismiss. Fourth, the sinful responses. And fifth, the redemption. But before we dive in, let's take a quick look in the immediate context of the passage. So 2 Samuel begins its first chapter with David being anointed king of Israel. And we see in the first chapter how David conquers all his enemies and becomes a powerful king in the land. But then in chapter 12, David starts his downward spiral of sin. We read about this episode with Bathsheba and Uriah, the adultery and the murder. But God, as a father who disciplines his children, brings correction to David through the prophet Nathan. We see this in chapter 12, that Nathan was courageous enough to rebuke the king and point out his sins. And Nathan, as the prophet of God, as the mount piece of God, brings correction to David, but he also brings reconciliation. As we see in verse 12 of chapter 12, it says, the Lord has put away your sin, talking to David. The Lord has forgiven you. However, verse 10, the sword shall never depart from David's house. And then from this point on, we see the judgment of God upon David's house. His little baby with Tamar died. We have this episode here, chapter 13, Amnon raping Tamar, and then Absalom killing Amnon because of this, and then a series of troubles and evils that befall David's own house. All of this is a sure promise of God that the sword would never depart from David's house. That is the context when we get here to chapter 13 of our text. of 2 Samuel. God is waiting His hand on David. God was bringing judgment to him and to his house. And then in verses 1 to 7, we have our first point, the plan. Verse 1 begins by introducing most of the characters of the story. We have David, we have Amnon, and Tamar. And the text says that Tamar was a beautiful woman. And the Bible only gives us physical attributes to their characters when they are either important to the story or very exceeding in the person, which I think is the case with Tamar. She was probably extremely beautiful. And also, she was a virgin. This is not only pointing to the fact that she was not married, but also that she was a woman of a marriageable age. And because of this, because of her beauty, we read that Amnon, her half-brother, fell in love with her. This is how we are introduced to Amnon and the story. He loved Tamar, even to the point of becoming tormented by not having her and also making himself ill because of that. And the idea here is that his anxiety and desire to have her were making him distressed and relentless and uneasy. And here, in a few words, we can already detect Amnon's wickedness. He wanted something prohibited. Prohibited by the law of God and prohibited by nature itself. He wanted his own half-sister. And because he did not have her, he was becoming in stress and agitated. Just the fact that he desired Tamar was already a grievous sin. Remember in 1 Corinthians chapter 5, the apostle Paul condemns the evil of incest. And his words are the following, it is actually reported that there is sexual immorality among you and of a kind that is not tolerated even among pagans. Even those who love their sins, even those who live by flesh, by their flesh and by their senses and by their desires, they cannot tolerate this kind of evil. And this is what's moving Amnon's heart. Not his love for his sister, but his lust. What Amnon is feeling here is not love, but sinful lust. Sinful lust. And just a footnote here, what should strike us about this sin is that Ammon is kind of repeating and imitating his father's sins. I'm not saying that Ammon sins David's fall, not at all, but notice the nature of the sin. Not only a sexual sin, but David had lust after a woman who was off limits, someone else's wife. The same way, Amnon lusted and desired a woman that could never be touched by him. This teaches us a quick and great lesson about parenting. That our children look up to us as their examples. The question is, what example are you giving them? How have you been influencing your children? Because they are watching us every time. and they will imitate us. Well, Amnon not only lusted after his half-sister, but he also planned to fulfill his sinful desires. However, he didn't do it alone. And here we are introduced to another character in the story, Jonadab. He was Amnon's cousin and a friend. It says that he was a crafty man. And the Hebrew word used is the same as wisdom that we find over and over again in the book of Proverbs. Jonadab could read the situation, sense the situation so well and better than anyone that he noticed something wrong with Amnon. Not even his father David could notice Amnon's different mood. But Jonadab did. He noticed that because he was watching and observing Amnon, morning after morning, and he could tell that there was something different, something wrong with his cousin, because he was a crafty man. And as I read in a commentary talking about Jonadab, it says that he had wisdom without ethics, he had insight without integrity, and he had skill without scruple. And without him, maybe Amnon would never have done anything wrong to Tamar, except for his evil thoughts, which were sinful already. And with Jonadab's advice, Amnon can find a way to turn these evil intentions into sinful actions. Can you see how decisive a friendship can be in our lives? Without Jonadab's advice, Amnon would probably do nothing with Tamar. But because of the influence of his cousin, he took action. This, brothers and sisters, is a serious call for us to choose our friends rightly. And by friends here, I really mean influence. Nowadays, you can be influenced in many ways by many people or many ideas. My question is, what voices are you hearing in your life? Who or what has been decisive, a decisive word in your actions. Hearing that counsel can ruin not only your life, but the life of others. And what was Jonadab's plan? Verse five, lie down on your bed and pretend to be ill. And when your father comes to see you, say to him, let my sister Tamar come and give me bread to eat. This is exactly what Amnon did. What can we glean from this? I want you to consider the deceitfulness of the perpetrator, the deceitfulness of the abuser, of Amnon. This is really how most of the abusers work. They are masters of deceit and manipulation. Who would ever thought that Amnon was making all these things up in order to rape his own sister? This is how abusers function. They manipulate not only their victims, but also everyone around them in order to get what they want. This is exactly what Amnon is doing here. He's deceiving Tamar. He's deceiving David. And he's deceiving all the servants of the palace who he sent off in verse nine. This is the purpose of the abuser. He seeks opportunities to be completely alone with his victim in order to do whatever he wants. And let me tell you an astonishing statistic, and that's the only one that I will mention. 93%, 93% of sexual abusers are known to their victims. Family members, acquaintances, close friends, neighbors, uncles, fathers, grandfathers, cousins, teachers, even pastors or elders. What happens is that they use the familiarity and their free access to the victim to groom them and to build a relationship with them. And eventually, they take advantage of this without anyone ever suspecting them. Abusers are masters of deceit and manipulation. Now notice in verses 8 to 14, the trap. This is our second point, the trap. Amnon finally got what he wanted, to be alone with Tamar. He pretended to be sick, asked his father to bring him his sister, sent away all the servants, and now he's alone with Tamar. And what is about to happen is a display of a complete wickedness, cowardice, and monstrosity. that had its seed in his sinful thoughts, in his sinful lust. What happens here is what a human being without self-control can do to someone else. It is a display of the perversity of the sinful heart of men. And don't think that we are free from this. Don't think that you will never fall into the same sin as Amnon. Just give an opportunity to your sinful sexual lusts and impulses. Just feed your immorality just a little bit today, a little bit more tomorrow, and a little bit more next week. And without you even realizing it, you will be as wicked as Amnon. You just need to befriend with your sin. That's all. The Puritan John Owen put it this way, very famously, be killing sin or sin will be killing you. Amnon was obviously not concerned about killing his sin, but he was concerned about feeding his lust for Tamar. The question now for us is, how have we been dealing with our sexual sins, with our sexual temptations? You should not play with this sin. Don't think that you have everything under your control, especially with this kind of sin. Sexual sins are extremely dangerous and defiling. You should do as Jesus has commanded us in Matthew chapter five. If your right eye causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. If your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. But this was not what Amnon did. When Tamar entered his room, she did not suspect anything and just baked all the food he requested. But as soon as he had a chance, the text says, he took hold of her. In the original, the Hebrew is a strong word meaning that he grabbed her, he sized her with violence. But notice that Timur indeed resisted as she could. She starts arguing with Amnon in different ways. First of all, she appeals to Amnon's conscience. She expects him to see the outrageous thing that he's about to do against her. She, as apparently a godly woman, is trying to show her brother how God hates rape, how God abhors sexual abuse and sexual violence. But here is aggravated by the fact that they are siblings. And she says, such a thing is not done in Israel. And she pleads with him, do not violate me. Such a thing is not to be done among the people of God. Actually, it's not to be done at all, let alone by the people of God. People were called to be holy, separated, to be kind, pure, and loving. And even so, we find many people doing this outrageous thing in the midst of the church in our days. Those people are wretched, unrepentant, and wicked sinners, like wolves in the sheep's clothing. And God hates them. God not only hates the sin, but He also hates them, the oppressor. Psalm 7 says that God is full of indignation and He has His sword ready and His bow bent. All deadly weapons prepare to take action against unrepentant, wicked men such as Ammon. The Hebrew word translated as violate can also be translated as oppression. that she was saying, do not oppress me. And the word is commonly used in the Bible to express sexual oppression, also other kinds of oppression. And again, I cannot stress enough how God hates oppression and oppressors. And he himself would take vengeance against those who oppress his people because they are precious to God's eye, to God's sight. And to do something against God's people is to do something against God himself. Tamar goes on trying to convince his brother to not violate her, and she appeals again to his brother on behalf of herself and her honor, saying how shameful that would be for her. And Tamar even is concerned about her brother's reputation and status. She says that he will be as a fool and wicked man in Israel. This shows how godly Tamar was thinking, not only about herself, the implications of this for herself, but also for her brother. But all her attempts seem to be in vain. She even says in verse 13, please speak to the king for he will not withhold me from you. And I believe that this was kind of a desperate attempt to get out of the situation, not that she really believed that this would happen, but she would gain time to flee and to avoid the situation. But none of those things worked, and Amnon fulfilled his sinful desires. He forced her, he violated her, he oppressed her. And then in verses 15 to 19, we have our third point to dismiss. Verse 15 begins in a shocking way. It is really unbelievable what happens here. Verse 15, Amnon hated her with very great hatred, so that the hatred with which he hated her was greater than the love with which he had loved her. This is just one more evidence that the love that Amnon claimed to feel towards Tamar was just pure and sinful and destructive lust. The only thing Amnon ever loved was himself, his own desires and his own fleshly ambitions. And after doing this evil, practicing this evil against her, he says, get out, go. But Tamar even said that in verse 16, that being dismissed by him will make things even worse. And notice that all Tamar's arguments were all based on the laws of God, the Old Testament. She was a godly woman, a well-versed woman in the laws of the scriptures. And based on those laws, she said, now that you've done this to me, you cannot simply dismiss me. But he would not listen to her. Look at verse 17. He called a young man who served him and said, put this woman out of my presence and bowed the door after her. The Hebrew text does not have the word woman in it. The original text, he's actually saying, put this out of my presence, put this thing out of my presence. Ammon refers to timbre as a thing, as something that he can use for his own pleasure, whatever he wants, whenever he wants, and just discard them later. And this, brothers and sisters, is how abusive people treat their victims. Of course, the abuse itself, it's saying this to them. But they actually say those things to their victims. They verbalize all their hatred and evil to their victims, just as Amnon did to Timur. Especially those who constantly abuse their victims. Perpetrators constantly attack their victims verbally, to belittle them, to humiliate them, purposefully. They do this over and over and over again in such a way that their victims believe them eventually. I mean, think about a person who lives under this kind of oppression in an abusive home. She might hear these things over and over and over against her for years. And do you think that this changed the way that this person would think about herself? Of course. And this is what happens to Tamar versus 18 to 19 described all her shame by putting ashes on her head and publicly showing everyone that she's not a virgin anymore, a typical thing to do at those times. She had to tear her long robe that pointed to her virginity, to her purity, to her chastity. And verse 19 ends with an emphasis on Tamar's response to this evil violation. The text says, she went away crying out loud as she went. The Hebrew text brings the idea not only of a constant weeping, but also of a profuse weeping, deep weeping and sorrow. She was simply devastated, and it could not be different. The text ends by saying that she lived in her life, the rest of her life, desolate in the house of Absalom, probably doomed to shame and involuntary singleness. But this was not the end. We have recorded here in verses 20 to 22 two responses to the rape of Tamar. And this is our fourth point, sinful responses. Look at verse 20 to see Absalom's response to her sister. Hold your peace, my sister. He's your brother. Do not take this to heart. To make matters worse, after being raped, after being violated and humiliated and dismissed as a trash, as something and not as a person, she had to listen this answer from her other brother. Absalom is saying, hold your peace, which means be quiet. Don't say anything. Keep your mouth shut. Can you believe that? And he even adds, don't take this to the heart. He's your brother. Forget it. It was nothing. It was nothing bad. Don't live on it. How terrible this response was. Absalom is just adding more evil to her situation, which is already unimaginable. You go through all those terrible things and now you have to hear this from your other brother who's supposed to protect you. It is important to say that Absalom's response was a way to deviate attention from what he was planning to do. That's true. He really hated Amnon, what Amnon did with Tamar. with all his heart. And this is the reason why later in the same chapter, he orchestrates a plan to kill Amnon for what he did with his sister. However, he was not able to comfort her appropriately. All that he had to do is just to say some words of comfort, of compassion towards her, that's all. But he gives this miserable answer to her. And don't think that this does not happen in our days. Many people, when they find out that their daughters or their sisters have been abused or raped, they don't say a word. Or worse, they say some terrible things just like Absalom did. Or even worse, they don't believe them. This is so frequent in abusive cases. The victim goes to her parents to disclose the abuse, to disclose what happens to her, and they simply don't believe. And they start to accuse them in such a way that now the victims feel that no one will ever understand her and believe her. And a huge part of this is due to the perpetrator's manipulation and deceit. Because they are usually good people in the community, in the church. So when you tell the parents or someone, they will say, no, this can't be happening. It's not possible. He's a good man. He's a good guy. He has an honorable reputation. Him? Of course not. Just be quiet. You're lying. Those are the things that victims hear when they try to disclose their abuse. Your congregation, if someone discloses to you something like this, an abusive situation, be all ears to this person. Be someone that they can count on. Be someone who will pray for her or help them or guide them. Don't dismiss the victim as the abuser did before. And I'm not saying that you need to believe in every single person that come to say something about abuse for you to you. But just be compassionate and listen with mercy and compassion. But then we have David's response in the text. Look at verse 21. When King David heard all these things, he was very angry, period. That was all he did. He became angry, which was a good start. But then he stopped there. He didn't do anything else after becoming angry. How could that be? Think about your own daughters. How could you do nothing to protect or to comfort your daughter after such a tragic episode in her life? We as fathers should protect our girls and our boys. and stand for them in any opposition they face. And in the case of abuse, we should be the first to be with them, to help them, to cry with them, and especially to report to the authorities. That's very important. Sexual predators need to be publicly and openly exposed. It doesn't matter if the report would be bad for the church, the reputation of the church. Because the abuser was an important person, a pastor, an elder, a deacon. It doesn't matter if the report would tarnish or compromise the honor of the person of the family. It doesn't matter. If this happens to someone, you know, we know we need to report it. If we don't, we are giving free agency to the perpetrator to keep victimizing people. That's what we will do. David was not only the father, but he was the king. As a father, he had to punish his son for his evil doings, and as a king, he had to establish justice in the land, and he failed to do both. In verse 23, we read that two years have passed, two years, and yet David did absolutely nothing. Some traditions believe that the reason why David did nothing with Amnon, did not punish him, was because he loved him, and he was his first, because he was his firstborn. And we can see how this could be true and possible, because later in the same chapter, when Absalom kills Amnon, what is David's reaction? Verse 36, he wept very bitterly. If all that happened to Tamar, he was not able to cry with her, to comfort her. But when Amnon died, he was desolate. When we think about David's sins, we think about his adultery with Bathsheba and the murder of Uriah. But the sins of total omission seems to be as any as that his previous sins. He became very angry and did absolutely nothing. This is how Tamar is left in this passage, desolate, abandoned, hurt, without hope. And even those who love her or are supposed to love her do not protect her. This is how victims of sexual abuse and other kinds of abuse, such as domestic abuse, feel as they were abandoned by everyone, including God. However, it does not need to end this way. We come to our fifth and last point, the redemption. Verse 13a, Tamar says the following. As for me, where could I carry my shame? How can someone live with all this scars? How can anyone be healed from this traumatic experience? Where could you carry your shame to your brother and your sister? There's an answer to this question. And the answer is the Lord Jesus Christ. As we read in Psalm 27 verse 10, if your father and your mother forsake you, the Lord will take you in. He will accept you. He will receive you. And he does that through Jesus Christ by the Spirit in the work of redemption. Where? Where could you carry your shame? You can bring your shame to the cross of Jesus Christ. There on the cross, He also was despised. He was spit upon. He was bitten. He was abandoned. And He was hanged there naked, desolate, bleeding and suffering. He was there carrying your shame, carrying our shame. Not only the sins that you've committed, against people, but also the shame that you carry for the sins that someone committed against you. Jesus also went through deep suffering and dismissal and shame and anything that you ever experienced in this life, Jesus also experienced and he can sympathize with you. Hebrews 4.15 said, for we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses and we are ashamed with our scars because he himself went through all those things. Therefore, the text continues, he is approachable because he knows what it feels like to be despised, to suffer, to be dismissed, to be beaten, to be mistreated, to be injured, to be oppressed. He knows what it feels like, and He will accept you if you go to Him. Jesus is a compassionate God. He will look at you with pure eyes, with eyes of compassion, with eyes of mercy. He will not judge you for what you've been through, but He will receive you with open arms, ready to comfort and to heal you. This is the essence of who the Lord Jesus Christ is. He's gentle and lowly in heart. And because he's gentle and lowly in heart, and because he was oppressed, he himself hates oppression. He himself hates rape. He hates abuse. He hates what have happened to you. And he is the one who is most interested in your well-being and in your healing. Therefore, go to Him for healing. He's the one who can bear your griefs and carry your sorrows. He's the one who bears your heavy burden and gives you a light burden. Where could you carry your shame? to Jesus Christ and His cross. Hebrews 12 verse 2 says that Christ despised the shame and endured the cross. The shame that disturbs you today was taken in by Christ willingly to give you freedom. By His wounds we have been healed. And how does this work? In practice. is you seek Jesus. You ask Him with faith that He might take away your shame and give you joy instead. You go down on your knees and you pray constantly and fervently to God every single day. It's not an easy process. It's not an instantaneous process. It takes time. And this is one of the reasons why God gives us the church. so we can care for one another, so we can love one another, so we can counsel one another and come alongside to those who suffer to bear one another's burden. God has ordained not only prayer, not only the word, the preached word, but also the fellowship with other Christians to help us to overcome our shame. We need to take advantage of it. This is how you can overcome your shame and your past by sticking closer to God in prayer, by filling yourself with His Word, but also by opening up yourself to others, to other Christians who can help you and minister to you. Where should you carry your shame, dear friend? Where else should we go, says Peter? To Jesus Christ. He is the only one who have words of eternal life. If you go now to Him, He will overcome your shame by laying the foot of the cross. It is a process, sometimes a lifelong process, but God will certainly heal you. God's power will not only help Tamar's, but can also help Amnon's. God's healing and redemption is also available for Amnus, for those who carry the shame of abusing someone. The same God who heals and accepts people who have been abused is the same God who heals and receives repentant abusers. So let us come to Him with faith that He can heal us. Amen, let us pray. O God, we thank You for Your Word and for the Lord Jesus Christ, who bore our shame on the cross and who can heal anyone, anyone, O Lord, who comes to Him. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.