David and Absalom and the War in Heaven Part 3

Yesterday we finished paralleling Davids’s ascent of the Mount of Olives with that of Jesus a thousand years later.

“For He made Him who knew no sin, to be sin for us, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.” 2 Cor 5:21.

Jesus endured with unmurmuring submission, hunger and thirst and cold and nakedness and at length sweat drops of blood in Gethsemane, gave His back to the smiters, and His check to the mockers, and was then fastened to the cruel wood, that He might suffer the wrath of God on our behalf. For the sake of His doing and His dying, His substitutionary sufferings and His vicarious obedience, the Lord, our God, accepts us.

In our perfect substitute you are complete in Him, you are in God’s sight as perfect as if you had never sinned; no, more than that, the Lord our Righteousness has put a divine garment upon you, so that you have more than the righteousness of man – you have the righteousness of God.

You who are in bred with sin and depravity, remember, none of your sins can condemn you. You have learned to hate sin; but you have also learned to know that sin is not yours – it was laid upon Christ’s head. Your standing is not in yourself or of yourself, nor ever will be. It is in your Lord; you are as much accepted today with all your sinfulness as you will be when you stand incorrupt before the thrown of God.

Before the hills of the earth were laid, before He had stretched out the heavens like a scroll, or scooped out the valleys, or piled up the mountains, or carpeted the earth with verdant green, or laced it with running brooks and flowing rivers; before He had set the furnace of the sun on fire, or called the queen of the night into orbit, or the sons of God to shouting for joy; redemption was accomplished.

The hill of your conflict is the hill of Calvary; the house of consolation is built from the wood of the cross; the temple of heavenly blessing is founded upon the rock – riven by the spear which pierced His side. No scene in sacred history ever gladdens the soul like Calvary’s tragedy.

Light springs from the mid-day midnight of Golgotha, and every flower of the field blooms sweetly beneath the shadow of the once accursed tree. In that place of thirst, grace has dug a fountain which ever gushes with waters as pure as crystal, each drop capable of alleviating the woes of mankind.

It is at Olivet that we ever find comfort, not on the hill of Sinai. It is by looking at the bitter herbs of Gethsemane that the bitter herbs of your life will be taken away; by seeing the scourge of Gabbatha, that your cares will be scourged away, and the groans of Golgotha will put your groans to flight.

The common mercies we all enjoy all sing of love, just as the seashell, when put to the ear, whispers of the deep sea from where it came; but if we desire to hear the sea itself, we must go there and look at it. He who would know the love of God must look at the life of Christ from the womb to the tomb.

Behold Him in a manger, come to deal with that thing that blights homes, that breaks hearts and digs graves. He came to deal with that thing that insulted God, that killed the prophets, that robbed heaven and made sheol the high capitol of the universe – death.

In 2 Samuel 17 there is an image of the battle of Armageddon. They (the enemy) were all “gathered as the sand by the sea.” V11.  Here is the battle between the forces of Righteousness and those of evil. David’s people, the minority, were “hungry and weary and thirsty in the wilderness” v29.

  In 2 Samuel 18 the two armies meet. Twenty thousand men were slaughtered by the servants of David v7. This chapter is a picture of the judgment. “The wages of sin is death” Rom.6:23. When satan performed his master stroke and put Christ on the cross, he destroyed himself, just as David cut off the head of Goliath with his own sword. Another Shakespearean contrast; when David killed Goliath, the whole nation won. This is the principal of representation. When Jesus defeated death, the victory became ours. He “abolished death” 2Tim 1:10.

Even as men sought to kill the God of the Universe, Absalom had sought to kill his own father. The princely Absalom, whose glorious beauty had been the pride of Israel, had been cut down in the vigour of his youth, his dead body thrust into a pit and covered with a heap of stones, in token of everlasting reproach which awaits all rebellious against God’s eternal love.

But notice how the story ends. 18:33 “The king was overcome with emotion. He went up to the room over the gateway and burst into tears. And as he went, he cried, “O my son Absalom! My son, my son Absalom! If only I had died instead of you! O Absalom, my son, my son.” NLT. David cried “would God I had died for you”, God cries “It is finished.” He did die for us! Substitution is the pith and marrow of the gospel!

As I picture David’s jubilant forces returning to the city, I see a change of attitude as their thoughts reflect on the lost, the loved ones close to David’s heart. I can’t help but think of the days in heaven as we stand on the sea of glass and sing “Glory to the Lamb that has redeemed us from the curse of the world” whether our thoughts will not reflect on those whom we loved dearly, who will perish for eternity. But, “He will wipe away all tears…” Revelation 21:4. The remembrance of those things will be taken away. As the ceaseless ages of eternity roll, we will remember no more the things that would give us pain.

Friends, this now is the moment to decide. Shut out from your mind every scene but calvary, every voice but His. You decide your own destiny in the full light of the cross. You decide on the edge of eternity. You decide while He waits! But do it now! Life IS a question that demands an answer; if calvary can’t move us to decide then God has no other resource, for all heaven was poured out there.

Life is the place and time where we make our decisions for eternity. Eternity has no clock -decisions belong to time, and the time is now!