2 Samuel, chapter 18, starting in verse 9, going all the way to the first part of verse 8 in chapter 19. Of course, the chapter divisions are not inspired. So let's begin our reading in chapter 18, verse 19. This is God's Word. Then Ahimaz, the son of Zadok, said, Let me run now, and take the news to the king, how the Lord has avenged him of his enemies. And Joab said to him, You shall not take the news this day, for you shall take the news another day. But today you shall take no news, because the king's son is dead. Then Joab said to the Cushite, Go, tell the king what you have seen. So the Cushite bowed himself to Joab and ran. And Ahamaz the son of Azadek said again to Joab, Whatever happens, please let me also run after the Cushite. So Joab said, Why will you run, my son, since you have no news ready? But whatever happens, he said, let me run. So he said to him, Run. Then Ahimaz ran by way of the plain and outran the Kushite. Now David was sitting between the two gates, and the watchman went up to the roof over the gate to the wall, lifted his eyes and looked, and there was a man running alone. Then the watchman cried out and told the king. And the king said, if he is alone, there is news in his mouth. And he came rapidly and drew near. Then the watchman saw another man running, and the watchman called to the gatekeeper and said, there is another man running alone. And the king said, he also brings news. So the watchman said, I think the running of the first is like the running of Ahmaz, the son of Zadok. And the king said, he is a good man and comes with good news. So Ahmaz called out and said to the king, all is well. And he bowed down with his face to the earth before the king, and said, Blessed be the Lord your God, who has delivered up the men who raised their hand against my lord the king. The king said, Is the young man Absalom safe? And Ahimaz answered, When Joab sent the king's servant, and me your servant, I saw a great tumult, but I did not know what it was about. And the king said, turn aside and stand here. So he turned aside and stood still. Just then the Cushite came and the Cushite said, there is good news, my lord, the king, for the Lord has avenged you this day of all those who rose against you. And the king said to the Cushite, is the young man Absalom safe? So the Cushite answered, May the enemies of my lord the king and all who rise against you to do harm be like that young man. Then the king was deeply moved and went up to the chamber over the gate and wept. And as he went he said thus, O my son Absalom, My son, my son Absalom, if only I had died in your place. Oh, Absalom, my son, my son. And Joab was told, behold, the king is weeping and mourning for Absalom. So the victory that day was turned into mourning for all the people. The people heard it said that day, the king is grieved for his son. And the people stole back into the city that day as people who are ashamed, still away when they flee in battle. The king covered his face and the king cried out with a loud voice, oh my son Absalom, oh Absalom my son, my son. Then Joab came into the house to the king and said, Today you have disgraced all your servants who today have saved your life, the lives of your sons and daughters, the lives of your wives and the lives of your concubines, and that you love your enemies and hate your friends. For you have declared today that you regard neither princes nor servants. For today I perceive that if Absalom had lived, and all of us had died today, then it would have pleased you well. Now therefore arise, go out, and speak comfort to your servants. For I swear by the Lord, if you do not go out, Not one will stay with you this night, and that will be worse for you than all the evil that has befallen you from your youth until now. And the king arose and sat in the gate, and they told all the people, saying, There is the king sitting in the gate. So all the people came before the king. Amen. sporting events, football, basketball, and many other sports. In sports and sporting events, there is a full spectrum of emotion. There's the joy of victory, there's the agony of defeat, and everything in between. And when I was in college, I played rugby. Now rugby is a very physical sport, it's kind of like football. And I remember one game my senior year. By the way, rugby was very important to me. It's probably more important than it should have been at the time. I invested my life into rugby to a large degree. And I remember one game my senior year, we were playing our arch rival. And I hope you understand what I mean by this, but I hated my opponent. I hated them. I was against them. They were my enemies. There was, of course, a proper level to that. I didn't truly hate them, but I was against them. And I didn't want to be nice and cuddly with them. And I remember near the end of the game, I wasn't sure what was going to happen if we were going to win. And we made a great play. And just at the end of the game, we won. And I just rejoiced. I was so glad. I took my buddies in the arms and we were just happy. I mean, we were just rejoicing that we won. And, of course, the other side was not so happy. They were very sad. And this is quite natural for us as those made in the image of God, and we face these type of things, our emotional life, right? We can be all over the place. And in tonight's lesson, tonight's passage of Scripture, we have a full spectrum of emotions. And I want you to think about your emotional life. Every aspect of our life, all that we say, all that we do and how we feel is to come under the sovereignty and under the lordship of Christ. We are to have proper emotions. We are to control our emotions and shape our emotions. One of my questions, in fact my chief question for you tonight to think about is what's your emotional life like? Do you control your emotions? Are you happy when you should be? Are you sorrowful when you should be? Can you negotiate all the other emotions in between? Our passage of scripture tonight is, of course, in 2 Samuel. There's a lot going on. King David, he's the king over Israel. A few chapters back committed a very terrible sin. This sin has created problems for God's people, for the nation. And one of those is a rebellious son who revolts and creates the civil war, if you will. An inner church war. And Absalom is a wicked man for many different reasons. In the last passage of Scripture we saw this victory or this battle where David and his servants win. And Absalom in a large chunk The Bible says all Israel was with Absalom and he was defeated. He lost, which is a good thing because David is the true king. He's the anointed king. And in the text we just looked at last week is the death of Absalom. And the narrator, the writer, the human writer, of course inspired by the Holy Spirit, communicates very clearly that Absalom died a cursed death. So you have the battle, you have the death of Absalom. But we don't go directly into, and this is important, we don't go directly into David going back to Jerusalem and taking the throne again. There is a response, there is an emotional response to this battle. And this response is instructive to us, to our own life and our own emotions. I want you to see this lesson, it's in the bulletin. It's a longer lesson than normal. A Christian heart rejoices over the destruction of God's enemies, loves God and his people more than anything else, and if otherwise, changes his conduct regardless of feelings. A Christian heart rejoices Christians heart rejoices over the destruction of God's enemies, loves God and His people more than anything else, and if otherwise, changes His conduct regardless of feelings. I want to bring this to you under three points here. Rejoicing over God's enemies. through 32, a big chunk of the text. And this will be my longest point tonight. I want you to see the proper, there's a proper emotion. in this text. We are to mimic, perhaps in a little different way, but the same idea is there. The idea of rejoicing over the destruction of God's enemies. It's actually a literary theme. It's very clear in the Hebrew. This section here is flooded with good news. Four times the Hebrew word for good news is in this section. It doesn't come out in the New King James, I think, wrongly. Some translations translate it, good news, not just news. Four other times the verb, it's not just bring news, it's bring good news. And if you notice in verse 27, I believe it to be verse 27, here David says, he is a good man. and comes with good news. Now there's this theme here. Now notice Ahimaaz. He begins with what the good news. Verse 19. Let me run now and take the news to the king how the Lord has avenged him of his enemies. The Lord, of course, is the one who works all of our victories for us, then and now. You'll notice the acknowledgment that the Lord is the one who won the battle. And it's a battle of vengeance. It's destruction of enemies. This is a good thing. Ahimaaz is a good thing. Some translations of verse 22, Joab says to Ahmad, why will you run, my son, since you have no news ready? Some translations render that you won't get a reward. The New King James rightly does not translate it that way. Because Ahimez is not motivated, and this is important, he's not motivated by a reward. Here's a man who's willing to hide in a hole and risk his own life to tell David in chapter 17 what was going on. This man's in it to win it. He's having faith in the true king. He wants to just simply communicate to David this great victory. He's a little bit naive. He comes to David. In verse 28 you'll notice again, "...blessed be the Lord your God who has delivered up the men who raised their hand against my Lord the King." This death, 20,000 people in the nation of Israel, still because of the situation. That's good news. But notice a little bit of naivety. He's naive. Joab picked up on this. The heart of the king is not quite right. We'll get to that in a moment. But he says, "...is the young man Absalom safe?" And Ahimaz, It says something very interesting. When Joab sent the king's servant, and me your servant, I saw a great tumult, but did not know what it was about. Which is a lie. Which is a lie, because he did know. He did know what happened to Absalom. And he kind of fell a little bit under pressure. And he saw David's face, wasn't as happy as he should have been. The Cushite. Before we get to the Cushite, notice that we need to ask ourselves the question, why so much narration? Why does the narrator tell us about how the news came to David when, if you notice in verse 8, there's no record of what the king said to the people when they came to the gate. We have to ask ourselves that question. Well, there's the theme of joy. The narrator is setting us up for the fact that we should rejoice over the destruction of God's enemies. The gatekeeper, the man, the watchman, and David, they're anticipating good news. Oh, who's running? Oh, he has good news. The Kushite comes. And he also, just like Ahamed, communicates this message. This is a good message. What's interesting is in verse 31, And the New American Standard renders it a little bit differently. The New American Standard said, let my Lord the King receive the good news. It's actually a command. The Kushite says, David, receive this as good news. Again, we're setting up for what we really should be feeling. David doesn't feel this way, which is another lesson. But we should have in our emotional life, And in your emotional life there needs to be a place for even rejoicing over the destruction of God's enemies. Now what I want to do is I want to kind of explain this a little bit more. We don't fight a physical war do we as God's people. We don't have swords. We're not called to go out and kill people as the church. But I want us to think about this a little bit more. The Bible is full of this emotion and of this idea. Psalm 58, verse 10 and 11. The righteous shall rejoice when he sees the vengeance. He shall wash his feet in the blood of the wicked, so that men will say, surely there is a reward for the righteous. Surely he is God who judges in the earth. Notice in Revelation 19, the inhabitants of heaven. Revelation 19, we'll read a few verses here, three verses. Revelation 19, after these things, I heard a loud voice of a great multitude in heaven saying, hallelujah. Salvation and glory and honor and power belong to the Lord our God. For true and righteous are his judgments, because he has judged the great harlot who corrupted the earth with her fornication, and he has avenged on her the blood of his servants shed by her." Again, they said, hallelujah. Her smoke rises up forever and ever. Is there a place in the piety of a Christian for such thoughts, such words, and such emotion? We need to realize that for God's people to be victorious and for Christ to be victorious, it involves casualties, it involves defeat. 1 John 3, 8, this is what Christ is doing. 1 John 3.8, for this purpose the Son of God was manifested that he might destroy the works of the devil. Let me read one more quote to you and really bring this to application. Because one thing I'm not saying tonight, I want to be very clear, we're not to rejoice when the wicked die in their sin. were not to, as private Christians, wage a holy physical war against evil and go around with a sword and things like that. This was a different time, different things involved. Listen to this quote. Del Ralph Davis said, if the kingdom of God under God's chosen king is to be saved, then the enemy who assaults that kingdom must be destroyed. God gives no secure salvation to His church unless He brings decisive judgment on her enemies. We must stop praying, deliver us from evil, unless we yearn for its destruction. There will always be those, I suppose, who think it strange that there cannot be ecumenicity between Christ and Antichrist. Okay, unity, peace. between Christ and Antichrist. But God's people know that Cushite is right. The preserving of God's kingdom involves the perishing of its enemies. I recall a time when I was in seminary when, and I commend this to you as a proper emotion and a proper application of this principle. Remember a time where A friend of mine in that seminary, he was actually a minister of the gospel from Eritrea. It's a country in North Africa, heavily Muslim country. He fled for his life. He was physically persecuted, would have been killed. His wife and kids were still in Eritrea. We have been praying for his wife and kids to be safely... The king in Eritrea was brutally persecuting the church. I remember that... I've shared this with you before, but I share it again. because I think it gives us a helpful application here. I remember my professor praying. He said, God, we ask that you would convert this king or that you would remove him, that you would remove him. Perhaps even a better application for us is to realize that there needs to be a place in our heart, in our emotional life for this type of thing, because what's going to happen in the end? For God to completely save you, you who believe in Jesus, and who are going to rise again from the dead, and you're going to be in heaven forever. What's going to happen? Christ is going to destroy. He's going to judge the devil. all of his demons, and all those who do not, and have not, and will not obey the gospel. And then, then victory will be complete when his enemies are destroyed. This is an aspect of the piety of the emotional life of a Christian. rejoicing over the destruction of God's enemies. There's a place for it. Now, tonight I want you to see two more points and I won't spend as much time on them. But it has to do with emotions. Again, I want you to think about your emotional life and controlling your emotions and cultivating your emotions. And one of the things we see in here Very useful, starting in verse 33 of chapter 18, all the way down to verse 4 of 19, is this idea that a Christian's heart loves God and His people more than anything else. It's really kind of basic, it's part of the greatest commandment, love the Lord your God with all your heart. In other words, before everything else, God needs to be up here. So loving God more. And this is fairly simple here. Verse 33 on down. It's very clear. I mean David is destroyed. His sorrow has completely consumed him. His son Absalom is dead. And there's a sense in which we need to realize that that's not wrong in itself. I mean murder is wrong. Lying always wrong. But there's something right and wholesome about weeping over the death of your son. Especially an unbelieving son. I mean David no doubt is realizing what's the eternal location of Absalom. And we need to in some sense empathize and realize that there's a sense of propriety to that. But notice what David says. If only I had died in your place. the anointed king, the man who God had covenanted with to save his people, who points us to Christ. That is not a proper desire. See, there's a problem with David. He loves his son more than he loves God and his people. He loves his son more than he ought to. Oh, my son Absalom, my son Absalom." And this day that should have been a day of joy was turned into a day of sorrow. And I want you to think about not so much whether or not you love your children too much or something like that. I want you to think about whether or not you love God supremely and whether there's anything in your life that's pulling at your heart, even a good thing like loving your child. It takes the place of God, or the priority gets out of order. I want you to think about that. One of our ministers in our denomination, Gordon Keddy, says this. It's a rather lengthy quote. But it's helpful. David was a father who loved his son, but this love was blind and obsessive. He crossed the line from emotion to emotionalism, from sentiment to sentimentalism, and so denied all rationality and even righteousness. In his attitude to Absalom and his sins, David had no lack of information. He knew the facts. He had no lack of intelligence. He was a clever man, but his spiritual discernment just evaporated before his affection for his wicked son. In your pursuit of faithfulness to Christ, one of the things you need to be aware of is where is your heart? You know, where's your emotions centered at? Are you cultivating that in the right direction? If God was to have success, if you will, if the church was to grow, and it meant the loss of something else or someone in your life, what would happen? Do you have your emotions in the proper order? Do you have your emotions in the proper order? Thirdly, I want you to see changing conduct regardless of feelings. And again, my last two points are shorter, and this one's similar. I want you to look at verse five through the first part of verse eight. What we see here is still something in regard to emotions. And the idea is that the Christian's heart, if he's not rejoicing like he ought to, if he's not loving God as he ought to, then he changes his conduct regardless of feelings. Again, it's still an issue of emotions. Now what we have here is we have a rebuke by Joab and we have a repentance by David. Joab If you're familiar with this book, if you're familiar with the life of David Jobs, he's an evil man. He's on the right side, but he's fundamentally an evil man. He's a murderer, and he will eventually be executed by Solomon, and I believe rightly so, which is another story. In the previous episode, he disobeyed David's orders. But here he's actually right. And throughout the life of David, he's a bit of an enigma, and this is another reason why he's a bit of an enigma. He's right. He exaggerates. It's not necessarily true that if David was not to go out and to congratulate the soldiers that this would be the worst evil. that this would be worse than all the other evil that had befallen David. But his point is well received. Listen, David, you're wrong. Go out there, get a Kleenex, wipe your nose, wipe the tears out of your eyes. Go out there and pat your men on the back. At least act like you're happy. Thank them. And here he rebukes them. And I think this is a side comment. It's a lesson for us. You can reject a person And they rebuke you or they correct you because they're hypocrites. But if they're right in what they're saying it doesn't really matter does it? And Job is a hypocrite. Job is an unfaithful man but he's right here. What does David do? He recognizes that. Often times whether it be our marriage or whether it be our family or just anything. In the heat of the moment we're rejecting someone's person. But if they're right, listen to them. It goes to show something of David's piety that he does repent. And I want you to see that here as well. The text doesn't elaborate on this. But the sense is that despite this great sorrow, and David is definitely destroyed. I mean, he is distraught. The text clearly brings that out. To his own fault, his love for his son Absalom just consumed him. But what does he do? He repents. He changes his conduct. He goes out there. And he sits at the gate and all the people come to him. And the idea is that he thanks them. And that's the idea. The people don't leave him. They don't completely despise David for what he's doing. David changes his conduct. And here's the thing that I want you to see. I think we need to recognize this. Does David still have enormous sorrow for Absalom? He does, doesn't he? He's still upset. But He doesn't wait for the Holy Spirit to change His feelings to do what's right. You see, we're talking about emotions here. I mean, how edifying is that for us? You might be mad at your wife. You might be mad at your parents. You might be mad at your pastor. And you realize that you're wrong and you're still mad. Change your conduct. Don't wait for your feelings to catch up with what you know you should do. You know, if you're If your family member or spouse says a harsh word to you and they're wrong, you don't feel like loving them. It really doesn't matter what you feel like, does it? It really doesn't matter what you feel like. You know, it's an unbiblical statement to say, well, I don't feel like it. Well, we want to have right feelings. But even if we don't have the right feelings, don't wait for your feelings to catch up with you. Do what you should do and say what you should say. I think about the commandment in Matthew 5. Listen to this, this is very interesting. Jesus says on the Sermon on the Mount. He says, "...you have heard that it was said, you shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy. But I say to you, love your enemies." Love your enemies. Bless those who curse you. Do good to those who hate you. and pray for those who spitefully use you in person." He's not saying, be all bubbly toward them. You probably won't feel a great deal of compassion for people who hate you, but you're still called to love them. See how it's about emotions here. A Christian's heart If otherwise, he changes his conduct regardless of feelings. He doesn't act upon his feelings. And that's something that's commendable here in David's repentance. It's not so much about repentance and changing conduct. It's as much as it is about emotions. I want you to think about those things. A Christian heart rejoices over the destruction of God's enemies, loves God and His people more than anything else, and if otherwise changes his conduct regardless of feelings. As I close my message, perhaps the main takeaway for you is the idea of controlling your emotions by God's grace. Keeping your heart. The Proverbs says, keep your heart with all diligence. Keep your heart. Pay attention to your emotional one. Pay attention to your desires. Ask God to help you, to cultivate you, to make you more and more like Christ. Like a gardener plucks weeds and plants seeds in the soil of the ground, in the soil of our heart. As we go through our life, we pluck things that we shouldn't think and desire. We put things in so that it might guide us to those desires and emotions we should have. Is this not the promise of the New Covenant? To give us a heart according to the law of God. To hate the things God hates. To love the things God loves. This is a glorious promise. Because part of our problem as people in this world. Our biggest problem is our sin. It makes us guilty. Our sin brings us down. But Christ and His Spirit is our hope. We call upon Him, just as we sang in the psalm here, calling upon God, crying out to Him, seeking help from Him. He will bless us and He will help us. Amen, let's pray. Father, we come to you tonight asking you to help us to conform our emotional life to you and to have hearts that are like Jesus' heart, to love the things that you love, to hate the things that you hate. Father, we ask that you would help us to have self-control, to keep our hearts with all diligence, knowing that from it flow the springs of life. We ask in Jesus' name, amen.