How NOT to Lead: 2 Samuel 15:1-12

You're listening to the Bible Guys, a podcast where a

couple of friends talk about the Bible in fun, in

practical ways. Hey, everybody, welcome to the Bible guys.

Hey, do you know what we're celebrating today?

Oh? What is today?

Episode?

Oh? That's okay? What five three four? Man?

Don't mess this one up today.

That's a big day.

Don't mess this one up, which basically which.

Basically means every day is a big day.

Every day's a big day. That's right, that's what we're saying.

Well, listen, listeners, we're going to give you the privilege, nay,

the the what I should I should have said something

and then said nay, the privilege started. I messed it up.

I was gonna say the honor, nay, the privilege.

What an introduction to this next segment.

I blew it.

I'm hanging I'm hanging on the just every word now.

Okay, I have to explain myself since I blew it

so badly. Have you seen Knight's Tale with Yes, you

know what I'm talking about? What's his name? Who asked away?

Uh?

Huh batman joker anyway? Uh he uh? That that that

line is from that movie where he says, he says,

he says.

I give you the honor, nay, the privilege.

Which is why I messed up in my mind, right

honored name that privilege.

Yes, you want to try it again. Yes, we're gonna get,

ladies and gentlemen.

The honor nay, the privilege of hearing from Jeff. Because

Desiree has asked this question. What made Jeff mad this week?

Okay, oh this was and it's amazing. Yes, because when

we walked in the studio, which for you was what

four days ago for our listeners, yes, for us, it

was like two hours ago. We walked in the studio,

we were talking with our our our inestimable I mean,

our fabulous, incredible producer director. What is he? What is he?

Our technic technical director? Yes? Is that Josh? Yes? Yes,

so Josh behind the scenes. You never get to see him.

But Josh is the one who does all the cuts

and makes the sound sound good, all that kind of stuff.

We were talking with him about a technical install recently speakers,

all this kind of stuff. Tons of money spent, Yes,

and I was complaining about the fact that the installers,

not Josh. Josh is the one who fixed the problem

because he's a flipping genius, right. But the installers come in.

There's a thing when you install a big sound system

into a special room. Then you come in, you set

up some special microphones, and then the computer will pay

attention to it and go ooh, change this, change that,

realign this, do these things with the EQ all this

kind of stuff so that you get the best sound

you can get in the room. It's not perfect at

that point, but he gets it super close. Then the

geniuses with the golden ears go in make a few tweaks.

It's better. Well, they install this expensive thing and we're like, this.

Is horrible, horrible.

Now, the equipment's fabulous. What we invested in was great,

but the install was bad, so we were really struggling

with it. We get back in behind the scenes and

realize they literally took the computer's recommendations, went nah and

tried to do their own thing, and every single speaker

they installed was eqed wrong, every one of them, every

one of them, every single one.

In fact, I would venture to say, maybe the worst

sound experience. You know, when you stand in different parts

of the room. The inconsistency was so different in different

parts of the room. It's the worst as far as

that goes. It's the worst that I've ever personally exerce.

And I wound up walking you down the island going

this is ye first speaker because it's a six speaker

in array, right, and I keep saying that, look how

bad that is. Now let's step fifteen more feet and

now listen. You listen to next week and it's different,

radically different. It was horrible. So what makes me mad

is when when you have the technology in front of you,

or you have the expertise in front of you, and

then you throw off that and go, nah, I'm better

than that. That always makes everything worse. I've never had

a time when somebody took what was clearly in front

of them as the best advice and they get rid

of the best advice and just do their own thing.

I've never seen anything turn out better because some guy

thinks he's better than the advice. Right, And the Bible

says there's wisdom and a multitude of counselors. Counseling is

what you need. You need, you need a group of

people who are giving you a good idea.

Did you just turn what this guy Jeff mad? This

week into a sermon?

Well, what made me mad this week? It just makes

me mad when the guy had everything he needed to succeed, yeah,

and threw it off. Okay, I wouldn't and then made

everything bad for us when we paid for good customers.

I wouldn't have gone that route on that story. I

would have just said they're terrible at equeuing.

Well, all I'm saying is there's a better way, and

that is take to take good advice. Gave good advice,

takeo advice. That's what I was trying to say. But

you know I can't help it. Then I'm a Bible

guy and it just oozes from me. Ye right? Does

does that make sense?

Yes? Yes?

But I'll also be honest with see in your.

Blood, I am not sermonized everything.

I am not so and I just give a little

Bible verse just to chat about that. You're the sermonizer,

But I would say I'm also not as good at this.

What made Jeff mad this week?

Yes you are.

You're like a pro at it well, and I feel

like I stumbled through it. I feel like I stumbled

through and then failed at the What made Jeff mad

this Week's.

No, No, No, you just turned it into a lesson.

I know. I didn't know that.

It was like, it's like it's like the parents.

I didn't feel like there's any rules. Do you guys

need to coach me up on it?

Do you ever have a kid who uh has the

mom or the dad who turns everything into a Bible lesson?

Yeah, my kids have that dad. Yeah, I'm afraid they do.

Yeah.

You know the Bible says.

Yeah, well that's uh, that's that could be good sometimes,

but I've not seen that work out too well.

I don't teach them, I don't preach with them, but

when they ask for advice, I'll say, well, here's what

the Bible says.

Well, no, that's that's good. That's always good if they ask, right.

But it's like it's like I've met people though, and

this isn't necessarily you, but I've I've met people who, uh,

they'll see anything and it'll be like, oh, look, opinion

on the ground. You know, the Bible says there's hidden treasures,

you know whatever, And I'm just like, oh my gosh,

not everything is a sermon man.

So half the Bible guys doesn't like it when other

people quote the Bible is that what I heard. Let

me tell you another thing that made Jeff mad this week.

I think I think you hear what you want to hear,

because that's not what I heard. By the way Heath led.

Your Yeah you got I thought I thought of that

name too, was sitting there.

Yeah.

So I'm sorry that I failed at that. What made

Jeff made this?

Well? My goodness, I never said failed.

Well it felt like it. No, you had an opportunity

to say, good good effort, Jeff, wait to try.

Hey, I I am I'll do what you have done

for me in the past. Okay, I am one hundred

percent with you on this one because that Sometimes i'll

give it what made mad and you say, okay, good job,

you're mad for the world. And then sometimes I'll give

it and you're like, I'm with you in this one.

I'm with you in this one. Well, I am one

hundred percent with you in this one.

Well, it doesn't take much to get you mad. Everything.

I just got an other thing to be mad about.

Thank you, Chris. Your support means the world to me.

Well, so I will say this. I will say this.

You can't necessarily blame somebody for trying if they try

their best, right, right, So that's not what I what?

What the thing to be mad about here? Right? What?

What you what you can sort of be mad about

is hey, pay us for something that has promised you,

and then thank you for the money. Now we're not

going to do.

I'm a pro. I'm going to take a tremendous amount

of money for me, but I'm not going to pay

attention to the technology or the advice I have in

front of me. Right oops, I can't fix it, see you,

but thank you for the pay thank you for a

tremendous amount of money. And then I walk in and

will I don't get paid tremendous amount of money to

do those things. I'm a musician, so I have some

ears I can hear, and I'm like, well, that's not right,

And thank god for guys like Josh you step in

and go I know how to fix it.

Yeah, I know.

How to fix it.

So thanks for nothing. We have to fix the problem

that you created that you promised wouldn't.

Be a problem. That's right. That's all that makes me mad, okay,

right there?

Well hey, that was that was fascinating, riveting, but we

have to move on. We took eight well, we only.

Have a few verses to read today, and oh yeah,

the consequences of everything that we've been talking and we've

been really setting this up for a while. David abdicating

his responsibility to be a mentor to his son, David

abdicating his responsibility to correct his other son for behavior

that David also had in his own life. But it

repented from David's failure to raise his sons to have

God first place in their life and God's ways. It

all finally comes to a head. And then David refusing

to engage with his son when his son's trying to

come back to his dad. It's refusing. There was this moment,

there's this little window of time that things could have

been fixed, and instead, here's what it says in Second Samuel,

chapter fifteen, verse one. After this this is you know,

member David briting back gave him a half hearted kiss, yep.

Or at least after this, Absolull, So did Absolom? I

think it didn't make things better? After this, Absolom bought

a chariot and horses, and he hired fifty bodyguards to

run ahead of him. He got up early every morning

and went out to the gate of the city. When

people brought a case to the king for judgment, Absolom

would ask where in Israel they were from, and they

would tell him their tribe. Then Abslom would say, you've

really got a strong case here. It's too bad the

king doesn't have anyone to hear it. I wish I

were the judge. Then everyone could bring their cases to

me for judgment. I could give him justice. When people

tried to bow before him, Absolom wouldn't let them. Instead,

he took them by the hand and kissed them. Absolom

did this with everyone who came to the king for judgment,

and so he stole the hearts of all the people

of Israel. After four years, Absolom said to the King,

let me go to Hebron to offer a sacrifice to

the Lord and fulfill a vow I made to him,

For while your servant was at Geesher and Aram, I

promised the sacrifice to the Lord in Hebron. If you

bring me back to Jerusalem, all right, The King told him,

go and fulfill your vow. So Absolom went to Hebron.

But while he was there he sent secret messengers to

all the tribes of Israel to stir up a rebellion

against the king. As soon as you hear the rams horn,

his message said, you are to say Absalom has been

crowned king in Hebron. He took two hundred men from

Jerusalem with him as guests, but they knew nothing of

his intentions. While Absolom was offering the sacrifices, he sent

for a Hithafel, one of David's counselors who lived in Guilo.

Soon many others joined Absalom, and the conspiracy gained momentum.

So we're really not we're not reading the actual incidents.

Well, there's more coming, but this is where he rises up.

You want me to keep going.

There's a part of me that really wants to. There's

a lot more verses for the story.

Though, Yeah, there's a bunch of it.

Maybe that's the reason why we're gonna save that for

a whole episode.

Yeah, the way you and I tell the story, we

can get it done in twenty five minutes. But the

way that it's written here is there's a lot of

writing about this. Yeah, right, look at a couple of

songs David wrote during this time too. There's a lot

of stuff we'll cover here.

Yeah. So, so there's a note in the Life Application

Study Bible, and it says about diverse number two. It

says the city gate was like was like city Hall

and the shopping center combined. Because Jerusalem was the nation's capital,

both local and national leaders met there daily to transact

business and conduct government affairs. The city gate was the

perfect spot for this because the government and business transaction

needed witnesses to legitimate, and any to be legitimate, and

anyone entering or leading the city had to enter through

the gates. Merchants set up their tent shops near the

gate for the same reason. So Absolently therefore went to

the city gate to win the hearts of Israel's leaders

as well as those of the common people. So that

gives us a little insight. That's kind of a cool picture,

because after all, you wonder, like, how, you know, where

would he where would he pop esture himself to gain

that much influence in here that you know that many

cases and and but so the city gates makes sense.

So you think about the patients that Absolom has already

demonstrated by waiting two years to take revenge on eminen,

so we know that he's a cunning, patient person.

And then two years for his dad to bring him home.

Yeah, two years for dad to bring him home.

And then wasn't it two? Was it two or three? No?

It was two. There's two, and then it says four years.

Four years. He did this for four years. So he

actually decided to, uh, you know, wait for the right time.

In other words, he has is a lot of cunningness

and a very good sense of when is the right

time to pull off a plan? Apparently right, So he's

decided like, hey, how how long until I feel like

if we pulled off this plan people would back him?

And so I mean for years trying to show compassion,

win the hearts of people, and then basically turn everybody's

heard against his father.

Right man, that is how cool are you? For one? Yeah,

you have your own release. He goes and buys like

a Corvette chariot.

Right, and with the five pounds hair.

Fifty bodyguards out in front of him. Fifty dude, that's

the size to get fifty people. That's twenty five people

running side by side, right, twenty five lines side by

side out in front. Is that in his chariot? Would

have been like the size of a school bus. Yeah,

cruising through on those narrow streets, right, we think of boy,

a school bus would make a big production driving down

the road if you had it all fixed up, you know,

something that that big and that long on our roads

which are wide and big, but there inside of a

walled city, right, everybody would have had to get off

the street. Which in order for this and order for

this procession, he literally hired himself a parade every single day.

And here's which begs the question, how could David still

not know what's going on with Absolom?

Well, because at this point now David's living like a king.

But this is what you do if the opulence, the fanciness,

he's he's kind of walked away from the every guy

thing now, right. The fact that he thought that bringing

Apselom back and just give him a fancy house next

to Joe Apps was going to be enough meant that

David's thought David's priorities had shifted.

Yeah, right right, I'm going to show my love through

your stuff, through status and stuff.

Yeah. And so the fact that Appslom already has long hair,

he's a little bit of a peacock anyways, looking at you,

just by himself a Lamborghini. So on my way here

today to the studio, this guy came ripping out of

a parking lot right next to me. And you know,

I drive a pickup truck, so it's pretty big. But

this guy comes flying out a parking lot in a

Lamborghini blue Lamborghini Wow. And so I'm trying not to

make eye contact, but I can't quite looking at it,

and it's like, and he's trying to get around me.

He's trying to get around the cars around us. But

you know where we're at, where we live on Hall Road,

him fifty nine is a very busy road, so there's

a lot of traffic and all that kind of stuff.

But everybody was looking at him. Everybody was looking. Every

car around me, everybody was looking at him. And I

just was struck by the fact that this guy's peacocking

and frustrated that because he's a peacock, everybody's looking, which

makes everybody drive slower, which is frustrating him because he

wants to get around them, right right, right, everybody's driving

slower because they were looking at his car. But you know,

I don't know his story. I'm guessing he's pretty rich.

His car costs much of my house, right, right, so

I'm guessing he's pretty rich. This is what people would

have done. It's everybode went wow. Nobody was mad at

this guy. Everybody was looking at his Lamborghini. Wow, how

cool is he? I wonder what he does for a living? Right,

that's what you start doing.

Man.

I wish I was him, and so Abslom did it,

and his dad goes hah. Abslom is a peacock. Look

at his long hair. Look at his fancy chariot. He's

got these fifty guys out in front of him. But whatever, Hey,

as long as he's staying out of my hair, as

long as he's not causing me trouble, and then it's

not unreasonable. The city gates were also the marketplace. This

is where you'd go shopping. This is where you go

hang out, This is where all the action was. You've

been in the Middle East before, where there's where there's

gates and stuff, right, So so many times, I've been

in so many places where it's where everything happens. There's

somebody cooking some food, a few different little restaurants, there's

people selling trinkets. There's you can buy shoes and clothes

and soccer balls, and then there's people standing around. Clearly

the old man are doing business. That's what's happening. So

it's not unreasonable that he would go there. Because David

now is doing all his business in the palace. He's

not down with the people. But it's not unreasonable that.

You know, if you have a fancy car, you're going

to drive it where people can see it. And that's

what Absom does. The whole thing made sense to David

because he wasn't paying attention.

Yeah, and so think about how cunning he is. It

says that he refused to anybody bow to him and

and he oh he oh, I just I think you

have such a good case. And he said he did

this with all the people.

Tribe you from?

Right? What tribe you from?

Yeah, he's developing constituencies right right, Oh, that's a good tribe.

One of my favorite tell me about how are your

daughters doing?

Yeah?

Yeah, what do I tribe you from? Wow? How's How's

how's a little billy man?

I wish I wish my dad cared about you as

much as I do. I just wish there's something I

could do about that. Yes, that's what he's doing.

And so listen again. I said this a couple of

podcasts ago, and I said, I was impressed with the

patience of Absolom, you know, exacting his revenge, which is

a terrible thing, but like, I just have to admire

somebody who, like holy Cow, he wants to overthrow his dad,

and he puts a plan in motion and took four

years to cultivate that plan. Give it up for this guy.

If he had used those so he's outrageously talented and

incredibly intelligent. He's very savvy. If again, his dad had

taken him on a similar journey of personal development and

walking with God, those talents and those skills would have

taken Israel way beyond where David could take it. That's right,

because he's standing on the shoulders of a great man.

But instead he's using his gifts for himself. And so

often that's what we do, is we use our gifts

for ourselves instead of for God in God's plan. And

so here you go, David is kind of asleep at

the wheel. He's left his everyman personality and his everyman persona.

I guess where before he was one of the people.

He was a champion of the people. You know, he

was a warrior for the people. He was setting the

people free. Now all the enemies are vanquished. He has

hardly any enemies. He's at peace now. And so now

he's pulled everything into the palace. He's not out among

the people. He's not really paying attention, and he's kind

of asleep at the wheel, just indulging and enjoying his life.

And his son is running this secret thing behind him,

and David just doesn't see it coming. And so this

train wreck is going to get worse and worse and worse.

Yeah. So another good sermon that can come out of

here is that, you know, Absolom obviously has charisma, he

obviously has you know, personality, he's very cunning. He has

WO you know, WU is right, winning others over. He

has that ability.

I know people who have WU do you Yeah?

Yeah, really, Son of a Gun. It's number five out

of my top five. So it's not number one, but I.

Oh, it's incredible. What incredible gift the idea. So somebody

who will winning others over in strengths finders. If you

don't know that people with that gift which Chris has. Man,

they can walk through a crowd and touch one hundred

and fifty people and everybody feels like a million bucks

and just Chris, I want more, tell me more, I

want to know you better. And they just tend to

love being with people so much, and everybody feels like

they love being with them, right, And so there's a

great gift in that. So on the good side, the

way you use it and the way that you express that,

I think is brilliant. The other side of it, there's

always a dangerous side of every talent and for Absolum,

he used it the wrong way. Yeah.

And strengths finders it says that every strength is either

going to be a balcony, which is the top of it,

or a basement right right, right right.

And so the balcony is you help connect people and

make people feel really solid and they want to hear

more of the message, they want to engage more, they

want to be connected, and they feel connected and loved.

The balcony or the basement end of it is it's

manipulative to pull people in for your own bidding and

your own doings, right right, And that's what Absolom did, yeah.

Right, And sometimes the downside of having WU is this

is the way they explain it in the book. By

the way, they said, the guy can walk around the

party and he can meet everybody, can meet all one

hundred people at the party and be like, hey, what's up,

and then he'll go back to the same person and

meet the same person again with out realizing it's that person. Right,

that's the danger. So anyway, here's what I was going

to say, is that it teaches us that you shouldn't

choose your leader based on what you feel about their personality. Right,

it's like, oh, they're so sweet though, Yeah, that's a

nice one. That's a nice one. There's so they're so

kindly smile, right.

They told me everything I wanted to hear.

Yeah, he told a story about a puppy, right, and

it's like, oh, I'm going to be.

To give me what I need. He's offering to give

me justice in my town.

Yes, And it's like, guess what, let's not choose our

leaders by those kinds of things. We're going to choose

our leader. Yeah, those things do matter. I mean, you know,

charisma does matter, Personality matters, character matters. Those are observed

through this that.

With regard to governing, only with regard to bringing people

along with you. Yes, yeah, that's that's so if you

want to execuate person to govern, you need to look

at their policies, right, that's exactly right. Now, so he

ought no substance, right, he brought fluff and sugar. He

literally brought cotton candy to the people. He went, let's

vote for him. Look at his hair, look at his

look at his Corvette chariot. And this guy's impressed.

And he asked me about Billy, Yes, and he and

he loves me. Yeah, you wants your vote, right, that's

exactly right.

Yeah, so a lot of people vote for cotton candy

instead of real substance, no meat. Yeah, And so that's

that's that's what happens here. It's how he pulls pulls

off this coup. Yeah yeah.

And the cow is about to come and so okay,

that looks like it's our time, and so we can't

wait to get into the big story of what happens.

And hopefully we'll see you there next time on the Bible.

Guys,