2 Samuel 13:1-20
Have you been
infatuated with someone of the opposite sex, and did you confuse those emotions
with love? If so you are going to have a better understanding of the
first 20 verses of chapter 13.
The word “Love” is
so confusing in our culture, we love coffee, God, and people using the same
words, and it does stop with coffee, we love everything. It has taken
years for me to drop the “Love” word and exchange it for like. I do like coffee, and football, with the
exclusion of the NFL, and I do love God, my wife, and family.
With that backdrop
shall we begin; “Now Absalom, David's son,
had a beautiful sister, whose name was Tamar, and after a time Amnon, David's
son loved her. Amnon was so tormented that he made himself
ill because of his sister Tamar, for she was a virgin, and it seemed impossible
for Amnon to do anything to her.” Now they both had David as a dad,
but Tamar’s mother was Maacah, and Amnon had Ahinoam as his mother. It
seems that both Absalom and Tamar were both beautiful and Amnon was eaten up by
Tamar’s beauty and yet he could not touch her.
How often do you
check out what you call “love” by the authority of Love? It is found in 1 Corinthians 13:4-7, “Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast;
it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way;
it is not irritable or resentful; [a] it does not rejoice at wrongdoing but rejoices with the
truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all
things, endure all things.”
We can bet the farm on this truth, Amnon was in
lust but not even close to love, and many of us need to have a better understanding
of the word love. The big problem Amnon had is the same one you
and I have, it is called living under the authority of God’s word. And
the book of Leviticus lays out the Laws of God in this area in chapter 18:11, “You are not to have sexual intercourse with your father’s
wife’s daughter, who is adopted by your father; she is your sister.” Lust
is an active driver, and there will always be someone to tell you how to get
what you want, and for Amnon, it was David’s brother Shimeah, son of Jonadab.
Now the plan was all based on lies and deception so
what could go wrong, just about everything? The idea was to act like
you’re sick and ask your dad to send your sister to your chamber to prepare a
meal for him, and David did so. Now to be alone with her, he orders all
the help out of the room and asks his sister to bring the food to his bed and
feed him, but it was not the food he wanted. So he grabbed his sister and
raped her, and it all backfired on him for she was damaged, and he hated
her. He had her thrown out and she
went home and her brother Absalom had to come up with a way to pay back his
half-brother for this act of destroying his sister’s life.
From the Back Porch,
Bob Rice
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