Audio Transcript

This week we are talking parenting. A mom’s role in raising boys — that was Monday, in episode 2045. And today, Pastor John, as I look ahead in our Navigators Bible Reading Plan, coming up on the docket here between May 20 and June 2, we’re about to encounter three long, detailed, and related stories of rebellion. Children who rebelled. I’m thinking of Absalom, Sheba, and Adonijah.

On this trio of rebels, back in 2018, in a tweet you said to parents: “Read to your children the stories of the rebellion of Absalom against David (in 2 Samuel 15:1–18:33) and the rebellion of Sheba (in 2 Samuel 20:1–26) and the rebellion of Adonijah (in 1 Kings 1:1–2:25). Then look them in the eye and say: ‘Rebellion against the Lord’s anointed never, never, never succeeds.’” These three long stories are loaded with cautionary details. Can you point out a couple of things that strike you that parents would press home to their children in such a reading? And I presume the “Lord’s anointed” here you refer to in your tweet is Christ himself — is that correct? What other lessons stand out as you prepare us to read these sections for ourselves and to make use of them in our homes?

I wrote that tweet because it seems so painfully obvious to me that young people — and I suppose, as well, old people — need to be warned not to go down a path that has proved over and over again to be a path of self-destruction. Young people don’t always see the outcome of a path that they’re on. They need to be warned. They may not heed the warning — these three in the story certainly didn’t — but they might. And whether they do or not, it’s the parents’ God-given duty to sound biblical warnings for their children.

Three Failed Rebellions

I was struck in this passage as I was reading through it, like I always do once a year. One after the other, rebellions arose against King David. David is the Lord’s anointed. How he relates to Christ we’ll get to in just a moment, but God has chosen David to be king over his people. Samuel had anointed him king, and God had clearly warned in Psalm 2 what a foolish and deadly thing it is to plot against the Lord’s anointed. It’s utterly futile. The Lord sits in heaven and laughs.

Nevertheless, Absalom (David’s son), Sheba (who’s called a “worthless fellow” from the tribe of Benjamin), Adonijah (David’s son born next after Absalom) — one after the other, these three men raised their hand in rebellion against the Lord’s anointed, and every one of them is killed because of it.

Absalom steals the hearts of the men of Israel right under David’s nose by promising them better justice than David was giving them. And he leads a rebellion and winds up with his beautiful head of hair caught in a tree, and he’s dangling there and speared to death by Joab’s men.

Sheba tries to exploit a division between the ten tribes and Judah, who are squabbling over who gets to bring David back after the triumphs over Absalom, and he tries to lead a rebellion by mobilizing those ten tribes against Judah and David. But he ends up with his head chopped off (by a wise woman in the city of Abel) and thrown over the wall to Joab.

“We can never use the sins of our parents to excuse our own sins.”

And then Adonijah tries to exploit David’s old age to become king instead of his father’s choice — Solomon, his brother — recruiting even Joab now to switch sides. And both of them, Joab and Adonijah, die. So it’s not a very propitious prospect for anybody who lifts his hands against the Lord’s anointed.

Here are several lessons that I see in these stories, and maybe some more details can come out as I give the lessons.

1. Prophesied sin does not excuse sin.

First, a prophecy of misery and conflict in a family does not excuse those who caused the misery and the conflict. David began his reign with adultery with Bathsheba, murdering Uriah, her husband. Nathan the prophet says to David, “Now therefore the sword shall never depart from your house, because you have despised me and have taken the wife of Uriah the Hittite to be your wife” (2 Samuel 12:10).

So, all these rebellions from his children and others are prophesied as part of the consequences of David’s sin. But there’s not a hint in the stories that Absalom and Sheba and Adonijah are excused for their wickedness and their rebellion because of this prophecy. Prophesied sin does not excuse the sinner. That’s lesson number one.

2. Failed parenting does not excuse sin.

Second — and a very similar point, but maybe one that can be felt today by contemporary people even more than that one — young people need to hear this: Failed parenting does not excuse the sin of the children. We can never use the sins of our parents to excuse our own sins. We are responsible for ourselves regardless of our backgrounds. We will be held accountable for our own sinful actions, and the failures of our parents will not remove our guilt.

First Kings 1:6 says, “[David] had never at any time displeased [Adonijah] by asking, ‘Why have you done thus and so?’” This is an indictment of David’s sinful doting on his sons, a failure to discipline. And it seems to me that he treated Absalom in the same way as Adonijah because, near the end, his leniency toward Absalom’s rebellion almost cost him his kingdom. Nevertheless, in spite of this parental failure, both Absalom and Adonijah are responsible for their own rebellious attitudes and their sins. They can’t blame it on their dad’s failures.

3. Rebellion arises from high and low places.

Third lesson: Rebellion can arise from a sense of privilege and entitlement, and it can arise from a sense of worthlessness that seeks to take advantage of a situation and rise to power.

Absalom and Adonijah were both highly privileged, not only because they were the sons of the king, but because both of them were explicitly said to be very handsome. The author goes out of his way to make the point that they were handsome, well-liked, well-connected. Sheba was a nobody. He’s called “a worthless man” (2 Samuel 20:1). He hadn’t made anything of his life. Absalom and Adonijah used their privilege to gain power and overthrow their father; Sheba shrewdly took advantage of a brewing conflict between the king’s subjects.

But in both cases, whether from privilege or poverty, they failed. The point is that poverty and power, high position and low position, being somebody and being nobody, is no justification for rebellion against the Lord’s anointed. Sin lurks in the low; sin lurks in the high. So, beware, young people, that you could justify a rebellion against the Lord’s anointed by either one.

4. Self-exaltation ends in destruction.

Fourth, “Whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and whoever humbles himself will be exalted” (Matthew 23:12) — the words of Jesus. The beginning of Adonijah’s story makes explicit the root of the problem. It goes like this: “Now Adonijah the son of Haggith exalted himself, saying, ‘I will be king’” (1 Kings 1:5). And the same is true of Absalom and Sheba. This is the great sin, the deep, deep sin of all children and all parents: a craving to be seen as great, a craving to be seen as powerful or beautiful or smart or cool or handsome or gutsy or rich, somehow to be seen better than others. “I want to be better” — like the apostles squabbled with each other to see who was the greatest.

“Rebellion against the Lord’s anointed absolutely cannot succeed.”

The Old Testament abounds with stories like these, designed to make Jesus’s point: “Whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and whoever humbles himself will be exalted” (Matthew 23:12). Noël and I are reading Isaiah right now. We just read last night about these oracles over and over again in Isaiah. The evil that God is punishing among the nations is pride, pride, pride — self-exaltation.

Submit to the Anointed One

So, finally, we should say that yes, David, the Lord’s anointed, was a type of Jesus Christ, a foreshadowing of King Jesus. Christ is the son of David. Christ is the final Anointed One. “Christ” (Christos) means “anointed.” And from these stories, we should warn our children — indeed, warn ourselves — that rebellion against the Lord’s anointed, David or Christ, absolutely cannot succeed. But to submit to him and see him as the great and glorious and wise and strong and just and gracious King that he is would satisfy our souls forever.

The glitzy promise of self-exaltation is a mirage, young people; it’s a mirage. Don’t go the way of Absalom or Sheba or Adonijah. It cannot succeed.

It was a late night at the Evangelical Theological Society’s annual meeting, almost twenty years ago. The day’s formal schedule was done, and a couple dozen young, impressionable seminarians gathered chairs around a few veteran scholars to pepper them with questions.

Among the handful of established professors, two in particular shone as the brightest lights in the room. Hands down, these two had published the most books, and had the most recognizable names beyond academic circles. When these two spoke, the room listened most intently.

By the end of the evening, however, a striking difference had emerged between the two lights. As they contributed answers to question after question, one defaulted, quite conspicuously, to quoting Westminster, and little Scripture. The other shared very little, if any, Westminster — but text after text from the Bible. I suspect it went unnoticed, at first, but eventually the pattern became pronounced. More than a handful of us had taken notice by the end.

On that night, the two Reformed lights ended up with mostly the same answers to our battery of questions, but the way they arrived at those answers exposed different instincts. One defaulted to Westminster; the other, to Scripture. It left a lasting impression on me. I knew which one I wanted to imitate. And while I couldn’t find any passage in Westminster commending the first approach, my mind did immediately run to one passage in Scripture, among others, that commends the second.

Born (Again) in a Small Town

In Acts 17, having been chased from Thessalonica by an angry, envious mob, Paul and Silas come to a small town called Berea. They start with the synagogue, as was their practice. Luke then marks a contrast with these Bereans:

Now these Jews were more noble than those in Thessalonica; they received the word with all eagerness, examining the Scriptures daily to see if these things were so. Many of them therefore believed, with not a few Greek women of high standing as well as men. (Acts 17:11–12)

Clearly, Luke is not just reporting. He is commending. “Oh, for all hearers of Christian preaching,” he would say, “to follow in the steps of these small-town nobles!” Luke highlights two particular aspects of what made this response “more noble.”

Like Hungry Children

First, he says they “received the word with all eagerness.”

Paul and Silas came to Berea to herald a message, a word, not their own, but from God, through Christ. They came to give what they themselves had not created but received. The noble Berean response began with openness, even readiness, to receive — to take the gospel of Jesus Christ as objective and given and unalterable and, with open hands, receive it.

And Luke doesn’t leave us guessing as to how they received it. He says “with all eagerness.” This word, from God himself in Christ, was not received with hostility, or with apathy. However much Luke commends this synagogue in Berea for an objective, level-headed examining of Scripture, let us not presume that “receiving the word” implies doing so dispassionately or with coolness. They received it eagerly. As Ajith Fernando comments, “Their nobility lay in their willingness to acknowledge their need, resulting in an eagerness to hear from God and to receive what they heard. . . . Like hungry children in need of food, they sought God’s Word” (Acts, 469).

Like Careful Prosecutors

Second, then, Luke also reports what form this eager reception took: “examining the Scriptures daily.”

Doubtless, first-century Jews did not have Christian creeds and confessions to consult, but they could have been greatly tempted to turn to a host of secondary sources: whether the Mishnah, or oral law, or the Jewish common sense and assumptions they were raised in, or the growing corpus of Second Temple literature. Like us, they had plenty of other seemingly noble sources to turn to other than the Scriptures themselves. They could have defaulted elsewhere to check the validity of Paul’s message, but by God’s grace, these Jews turned precisely to where they needed to turn: God’s own word, not human formulations.

Paul had started them in the right direction by his own practice. When he came to preach in synagogues, “he reasoned with them from the Scriptures, explaining and proving that it was necessary for the Christ to suffer and to rise from the dead, and saying, ‘This Jesus, whom I proclaim to you, is the Christ’” (Acts 17:2–3). Paul pointed them in the right direction. He set up his listeners to check his message in Scripture by first reasoning with them from Scripture.

“They wanted to know the truth and the true God, and neither apathy nor gullibility would benefit the pursuit.”

So, following Paul’s lead, these noble Bereans examined the Scriptures for themselves. Eagerness and examination were not at odds; Luke commends both their heartfelt concern and their deliberate care. Noble indeed, they wanted to know the true God and his truth, and neither apathy nor gullibility would benefit the pursuit. And pursuit it was. This was no mere moment or flash in the pan. They endured in their careful search. They made eager reception, with scriptural examination, a daily practice.

Reformation Warning

In our own day, we too know the temptation of defaulting to voices other than Scripture to tell us what Scripture says. We have access to a stunning (and growing!) wealth of secondary literature, old and new. And best among it all are our creeds and confessions. They are precious — to be cherished far above the latest title off the press. Too few modern Christians appreciate the wisdom and value of the ancient creeds and faithful confessions like Westminster and others in its wake. And particularly those of us who gladly profess ourselves to be “Reformed” and unashamed sympathizers with the Reformation and its legacy.

“Do we daily, with eagerness, examine the Scriptures for ourselves?”

However, as those who rally to sola Scriptura — Scripture alone as our supreme and final authority — we do well to regularly check our practice with those noble readers in Berea. Do we daily, with eagerness, examine the Scriptures for ourselves?

Our best creeds, if we’ll let them, will remind us precisely of this, and encourage us to make a practice of this, even as useful as confessions can be when checking our work.

Keep Searching the Scriptures

For instance, the first section of the Desiring God Affirmation of Faith, though recognizing that “limited abilities, traditional biases, personal sin, and cultural assumptions often obscure biblical texts,” commends “humble and careful effort to find in the language of Scripture” itself what God has to say to us through his prophets and apostles (1.4).

It’s a warning worthy of sounding at not only the outset but the conclusion. The fifteenth and final section reprises the confession,

We do not claim infallibility for this affirmation and are open to refinement and correction from Scripture. Yet we do hold firmly to these truths as we see them and call on others to search the Scriptures to see if these things are so. As conversation and debate take place, it may be that we will learn from each other, and the boundaries will be adjusted, even possibly folding formerly disagreeing groups into closer fellowship. (15.4)

For now, we see much in the Scriptures dimly, not yet as we will (1 Corinthians 13:12). Young and old, we’re all to grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord, as given in his word (2 Peter 3:18). How tragic would it be, then, in self-identifying as “Reformed,” to keep Scripture at arm’s length in our admiration for those who so memorably championed Scripture, whether Luther, Calvin, Owen, Edwards, Westminster, or the Second London Confession.

So too, cutting the other way, as those genuinely eager to “receive the word” and “examine the Scriptures daily,” we do well to beware of letting sola Scriptura be a cloak for our own personal interpretations. Remembering those noble saints in Berea can renew in us the resolve to hold looser to human opinions and assumptions, especially our own. It’s a subtle but real and well-worn danger: we can fly the banner of “sola Scriptura” as a guise for rejecting the time-tested wisdom of creeds and confessions in service of our own personal instincts and interpretations.

Default to God’s Own Words

Those who teach faithfully and fruitfully in the church in the coming generation, as in the past, will be eager to herald scriptural truth, and they also will be eager to keep learning and growing themselves. No pastor or Christian leader has arrived, and the best know it well. Good pastors and teachers are ready to stand for what they know Scripture to teach, and yet are humbly willing to grow, and be shown to be wrong from Scripture.

However much we cherish and rehearse and draw wisdom from time-tested creeds and confessions, we learn to default to Scripture itself. We relish the very words of God even more. Not just in theory. In daily practice. In eager daily examination.

Can a man really be truly alive who has forgotten how to weep? Can a man of God, or a minister of Christ, truly claim to be fully awake without tears? These are questions, uncomfortable questions, I have been asking myself.

These considerations, dry as my eyes have been, do not originate with me. I consider them somewhat reluctantly. I had studied (and even memorized) the parting speech from Paul to the Ephesian elders before I beheld the apostle’s wet face.

Paul, anchored briefly on the seacoast of Miletus, sends a message forty miles south to Ephesus. He bids the elders come immediately. When they arrive, he tells them what breaks their hearts: “Now, behold, I know that none of you among whom I have gone about proclaiming the kingdom will see my face again” (Acts 20:25, 37–38). Paul was resolved to board a ship sailing into dark providences. “I am going to Jerusalem, constrained by the Spirit, not knowing what will happen to me there, except that the Holy Spirit testifies to me in every city that imprisonment and afflictions await me” (Acts 20:22–23).

“Can a man really be truly alive who has forgotten how to weep?”

Three years he had spent with them in Ephesus, tending their souls “day and night.” This is their last meeting in this life. His words fell as bricks of gold. Of all the things to say and recall, to encourage and to warn, with so few characters left to compose his final message, are you surprised that Paul mentions twice, of all things, his tears?

Serve the Lord with Tears

He begins his final words to these dear friends,

You yourselves know how I lived among you the whole time from the first day that I set foot in Asia, serving the Lord with all humility and with tears and with trials that happened to me through the plots of the Jews. (Acts 20:18–19)

Paul mentions his crying as a matter of fact — you yourselves know. The Ephesian elders remembered how the dew of his affections fell unashamedly. They saw him cry the “whole time” he lived among them. What an oft neglected picture of the mighty apostle.

If I could, I would try and paint it, entitled, “The Lord’s Lion, Crying.” It is good for me to see this. Paul, in his ministry, lost composure at times. At times — and it appears at many times — his passion for Christ and his pity for souls undid his seeming poise. “Do you remember my tears?” he asks these now elders of the church. Can you see those gracious rains watering my sermons, indeed, those sermon exclamation points from my soul to yours, servants of your eternal good and my gracious Lord?

The scene causes me to ask, Do I serve the Lord with such tears? Do I even want to? Do you?

Warnings Through the Blur

When Paul mentions his tears the second time, he says more. After telling the men to pay careful attention to themselves and to all the flock in which the Holy Spirit made them overseers, he tells them that vicious wolves will attack from without, and false teachers will creep up from within (Acts 20:29–30) — stay alert, he pleads. But notice what accompanies his appeal:

Therefore be alert, remembering that for three years I did not cease night or day to admonish every one with tears. (Acts 20:31)

“Admonish” means to warn. For three years he did not stop warning them, or weeping for them. What a sight. What a perplexity. Ponder this weeping warrior with me.

This man of industry and blood-earnestness warns them of sin and judgment and the wrath to come — while he weeps warm tears over their souls. As a sentinel, he held up his hands and declared himself free of their blood. He tells them twice he did not shrink back in cowardice from telling them all of God’s truth. He said the hard and unpopular word; he warned and called sin what it is. People did not like what he said — in fact, they were trying to kill him.

Still this soldier wept while warning: Turn from your ruin, flee from the coming wrath, repent toward God and place all of your faith in Jesus Christ! Believe in the good news of the grace of God. Keep believing in the crucified — now risen and soon returning — Christ!

Power of Tearful Pleading

Imagine standing across from such a man.

Your fallen heart has often been on its guard against arguments and criticisms. Your armor is well-clad, and your sin is well-protected. Heartless disputes and playing with words is your sport. But who is this foe striking from horseback? What kind of warrior sheds tears for the man he wishes to conquer? Steel meeting cold steel — this is the battlefield’s familiar soundtrack. Grunts and yells and trumpet blasts you relish, but not these soft and unnerving cries from the enemy — tears for you. This is more than mere truth; it’s love.

You see his redness of eye. You hear the arresting stoppings and startings in his speech. Here is no enemy, no hired hand, no mere debater of this age. He is earnest, to be sure, but earnest for more than an argument. He’s earnest for souls — my soul. He may discard my opinions, yet he bears me upon his heart. He tells me hard things but seems to want good for me. Perhaps more than I want for myself.

Admonitions for Two Men

What a corrective to both tearless stridency and weepy willows today — to the ones like me who have taught on the lake of fire while seldom shedding a tear beside it, and to those crying who would never dare mention hell.

“What a nuisance warnings can become when given without this holy moisture. All lightening, no rain.”

What a nuisance warnings can become when given without this holy moisture. All lightening, no rain. Such repeated scolding gives off dry, hot air and leaves hearts cracked. Bellowings Paul knew too well, “Saul, still breathing threats and murder against the disciples of the Lord” (Acts 9:1). In his now-wet eyes, the tearless can find hope that grace may not be done with us just yet.

But neither can we long tolerate the convictionless crier, whose tears have no deep well. Men ever on the verge of crying over trifles need reminding that they should quit themselves like men and be strong. Good tears serve a higher ambition. They serve the Lord Jesus. But above these rise the cries in Ephesus. How that weeping earnestness confounded sinners as Paul pled with the dead to turn and live. The Lord’s Lion — Crying, Warning, Pleading.

Such a one — I am only left to imagine — was hard to argue with for long, and even harder to forget. When is the last time, dear Christian reader, you warned a faithless brother, an apostate mother, a lustful son, a deceived friend through blurred vision?

Should not the truly living, in such a world as this, find times to weep? Do not many live despising mercy and rejecting Christ? Are not souls lost to that eternal place of gnashing and weeping every hour — our friends, classmates, and neighbors — many not knowing a Christian who shed a single tear over their souls? We come with glad tidings; we need not always cry. But is our danger too much tearful pleas for souls?

Weep into Their Souls

A final word, then, for fellow pastor-elders, men like those Paul spoke to that day. Do you have a tear to shed for the lost sinner and threatened saint? Do you serve your Lord with tears? I do not pretend to instruct you in these matters. These are but my sermon notes as I overhear the weeping lion.

Charles Spurgeon said it was a blessed thing for a minister to “weep his way into men’s souls,” a quality he had admired in George Whitefield.

Hear how Whitefield preached, and never dare to be lethargic again. [Cornelius] Winter says of him that “sometimes he exceedingly wept, and was frequently so overcome, that for a few seconds you would suspect he never would recover; and when he did, nature required some little time to compose herself. I hardly ever knew him go through a sermon without weeping more or less. His voice was often interrupted by his affections; and I have heard him say in the pulpit, ‘You blame me for weeping; but how can I help it, when you will not weep for yourselves, although your own immortal souls are on the verge of destruction, and, for aught I know, you are, hearing your last sermon, and may never more have an opportunity to have Christ, offered to you?’” (Lectures to My Students, 307)

Let us all pray for holy tears. Not for their own sake, not to make a vain show that draws attention to ourselves, or tries to manipulate. But let us seek life, full life, abundant life in Christ — a life fully alive, fully awake, fully compassionate within a cursed world of evil times and immortal souls. Lord, raise a generation of lionhearted men and women for Christ who serve you with all their hearts and minds and souls and strength — and tears.