LORD thy God, that thou wouldest not suffer the revengers of blood to
destroy any more, lest they destroy my son. And he said, As the LORD liveth, there shall not one hair of thy son fall to the earth.
12 Then the woman said, Let thine handmaid, I pray thee, speak one word unto my lord the king. And he said, Say on. 13 And the woman said, Wherefore then hast thou thought such
a thing against the people of God? for the king doth speak this thing
as one which is faulty, in that the king doth not fetch home again his
banished.
14 For we must needs die, and are as water spilt on the ground, which cannot be gathered up again; neither doth God respect any person: yet doth he devise means, that his banished be not expelled from him.
21 And the king said unto Joab, Behold now, I have done this thing: go therefore, bring the young man Absalom again.
King David's family had been split apart. His family and the whole nation were suffering. David's son Amnon had raped his sister Tamar. When Absalom, another of David's sons, found out he murdered Amnon. David was bound by law not to let Absalom get by with this crime. David had to banish his son from the nation; the sad thing is that Absalom had banished himself by his own deed. We can find ourselves in the same situation with the Lord, and it is more dangerous than it appears.
Amnon was worthy of death and one could almost say Abasolom was within his rights to take care of this himself, so he took the law into his own hands. He put his father in a bind. Think about how David must have felt. His daughter's life was ruined. His son Amnon did it and he was now dead. Another son had killed him. What a tragedy for the family. Absalom had the attitude of "if I have to do it all over again, I would." When he broke the law in effect he expelled himself. He was forced to leave. He was banished.
However David's heart was with him. So, what does this have to do with us? Do we sometimes drift away from the Lord, from our royal family, from the King of Kings. Jesus will sit on the same throne that David sat on; we do the same to our King as Absalom did to his. We banish ourselves by our own deeds when we really belong with the King. When we drift away, when we continue in sin, there is no choice for us. We cannot be as Absalom and do it all over again. Absalom's sin was a bad as Amnon's. God's heart it with us, but He is not a respecter of persons. There is no "I'm not as bad as….Sin is sin in the eyes of God. It is we who separate ourselves. We start assuming what we do it right when it is not. We think we can do what we want but we cannot. If we do not ask forgiveness we drive a wedge between us and God. God doesn't drive the wedge. We do.
Just as Absalom was not exempt from his sin, we are not exempt. We cannot allow sin to reign or harbor sin in our heart. If we do nothing about it, we banish ourselves from fellowship with God. It is even the words of David that say if I regard iniquity in my heart, the Lord will not hear me. God doesn't overlook our sin. We must pay. Absalom's sin came between him and his father, him and his family, him and his nation. The decree had to happen. It will be our sin that comes between us and the Father.
We treat our relationship with God in the same way. We think because we carry a Bible and come to church we are all right. If we get dissatisfied and want to throw in the towel, if we start looking for other places and things, we are already banished in our heart. We can appear to be in the household and be a 1,000 miles away.
How do you undo rape or murder? David wanted Absalom back. He missed him very much. Judicially he had to be banished, but that didn't keep David from loving him. God doesn't quit loving us either. God wants us where we should be, with him. We can't undo the sins of the past, but we don't have to sin today. Something must be done when we do. John said in his writing that if we say we that we have no sin, we make God a liar, the truth is not in us. BUT if we confess our sins, he (God) is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
Joab saw the distress of King David. He went to a wise woman and told her to go to David and tell him that her two sons fought and one killed the other. The whole family was against her son, and she wanted his help so that her son would not be destroyed. David told her that he would protect her son. She asked that he not allow the avengers to take him. He promised that nothing would happen to him. She turned around and asked David why, if he could protect her son, could he not protect his own. David had it within his power to pardon and bring Absalom home. It was up to him. David knew that Joab had arranged this and told him to go to Absalom. He was to tell him he had been pardoned and ask him to come back home.
The same Jesus which saved us is our means of coming back home. Just as David sent Joab, God the Father sent his Son to be our mediator and bring us back home. Absalom came back home with Joab. Banishment doesn't have to be a permanent thing. Sin doesn't have to be a permanent curse on us. We have victory over our sins, over our banishment. We have it because of Jesus Christ. Take Jesus by the hand and let the banished come back home.
Adwolfe Freewill Baptist Church 