Pride leads to Distrution

 2 Samuel 17:23-29

Do you recall 2 Samuel 16:23?  “Now the advice Ahithophel gave in those days was like someone asking about a word from God—such was the regard that both David and Absalom had for Ahithophel’s advice.”  This is a dangerous place for a man to find himself it would be effortless for most of us to become prideful and arrogant, and to believe what people have said.  Now, from a military strategy, his advice was rock solid, but God was fighting for David, and Ahithophel’s counsel he would not listen to.

So what does a man do who his leader always seeks and does what he tells them as if it was God speaking to them?  “When Ahithophel saw that his counsel was not followed, he saddled his donkey and went off home to his own city. He set his house in order and hanged himself, and he died and was buried in the tomb of his father.” (2 Samuel 17:23) 

Why did he take such extreme measures, was it because he knew the jig was up, the party was over, and David now would defeat Absalom and still be the king, and he would be considered a traitor?  We do know that he was a wise man but also a very foolish man who believed he could take the crown from God’s anointed.

As a child in small Baptist churches, I observed men who believed they were wise, we called them deacons, and often they would think their job was not to serve but to run the church, and usually they attacked the pastor.  Most of those little churches never grew, they just die, and you might say they hung themselves.

It is essential to understand this is a civil war it is neighbors fighting neighbors, and cousins fighting cousins, as was the case of Amasa over the army of Absalom and Joab over the command of David.  Amasa was also the nephew of David.  When the military of Absalom crossed the Jordan River, David and his army was about 20 miles from them in Mahanaim.

It’s so important that you and I always remember, God still provides what is needed for his people, and in this case, we have these men of influence who God called to take care of David and his people.  We find this account in verses 27-29, “When David came to Mahanaim, Shobi the son of Nahash from Rabbah of the Ammonites, and Machir the son of Ammiel from Lo-debar, and Barzillai the Gileadite from Rogelim, brought beds, basins, and earthen vessels, wheat, barley, flour, parched grain, beans and lentils, honey and curds and sheep and cheese from the herd, for David and the people with him to eat, for they said, “The people are hungry and weary and thirsty in the wilderness.”

We must put the words found in Deuteronomy 31:6b into our memory, “for the Lord your God who goes with you.  He will not leave you or forsake you.”

From the Back Porch,

Bob Rice