Spare Absalom

Transcript:

Greetings in Jesus’ precious name. Welcome to this amazing new day. Wherever you are, I pray and I hope that this word will come to you right when you need it.
Most of us, struggle with our relationships. We struggle to respond and react in a way that will honour and please God. The Lord is helping us in this season to expose some hidden motives in our hearts and some things that are creeping in the dark alleys. The Lord is exposing it by shining His light in those areas. The more that jealously is exposed, the more that hurt is exposed, the anger is exposed, the bitterness and unforgiveness are exposed, the more you and I will be able to live and walk in freedom.

Let me take you to 2nd Samuel 18:12, this is a servant who is speaking this and he says, “I would not kill the king’s son for even a thousand pieces of silver,” the man replied to Joab. “We all heard the king say to you and Abishai and Ittai, ‘For my sake, please spare young Absalom.’

This is a servant speaking this; he is not a well-learnt man or somebody of high principles or morals, but when you hear his statement, you understand and learn so much because he says that, ‘even if you give me money, even if you give me 1000 pieces of silver, I’m not going to harm the king’s son’. Wait a minute, you know how people in the scriptures have sold out people; Joseph was sold for 20 pieces of silver, Jesus was betrayed for 30 pieces of silver, and here this man says, ‘even if you give me 1000 pieces of silver, I’m still not going to harm Absalom’. Absalom was not as nice as Jesus or Joseph, he was not a great character but a rebel who deserved to die or be punished or to be kept far away from the kingdom of David; and this guy is from the kingdom of David and he is a servant of David and he says, ‘no, I’m not going to touch the king’s son because he’s the son of a king and because I remember what David said ( for my sake, spare the young Absalom). So for these two reasons, I’m going to stay away from hurting the king’s son.’

Now today, I don’t know who I’m ministering to right now but the Lord is giving you two reasons why you need to walk in perpetual forgiveness, in perpetual compassion, kindness and gentleness in your relationships this season.
The first reason you should be merciful and nice to the people that you meet, talk to, have relations with, interact with, and even those who hurt you and have been bad to you is because, they are a son or daughter of the king; they may not behave like one, or look like one, they may deserve the way they are punished, but because he/she is the son or daughter of a king. Sometimes when we look at people and say, ‘this guy is not even a child of God’, but he is still created in the image of God. Every person who is born on the earth is created in the image of God and that person deserves for you to have and give him mercy just because he is made in God’s image. The second reason is like the verse says, ‘for my sake’, this was the commandment of the king. Today when you punish the people that have wronged you, what you are diminishing is the value of what Jesus did on the cross, what price He paid for the sins of the people who have hurt you; and Jesus is looking at us and is saying, ‘for my sake because I have shown you mercy, you have to show mercy to others’. Jesus said, ‘whatever you do to these little ones of mine, you are doing it for me, so for my sake, spare that young guy and let that person go. Do not hold your grudges against that person because, in the long run, it’s not that person who is going to be hurt’. See, Absalom will get what he deserves, yet, if I take my hand and hurt the son of the king, I am definitely going to be in the bad books of the king for the rest of my life. And second, I am directly disobeying a commandment that the king has given me.

Jesus taught us like this; He said, ‘Do you want God to forgive your sin? then you need to forgive the sins of the people who have trespassed against you ’. How much clearer can it get? If I don’t let go of other people’s offences, then my offences, sins and past will not be forgiven by God in heaven. And that’s why God says, ‘for my sake, for the sake of what I have done for you, and for the sake of what I have done for your offender, you need to let this person go; spare that person ’. I’m not saying that Absalom is right but what I am saying is, one – he has an identity in God; he may be made in the image of God, or he may be a son of a king, or he may be created for a divine purpose, and second – because of your relationship with me; because you want to obey me because you want to do something that is going to please my heart, will you let that person go? This is the very key – if you can walk in forgiveness, you can walk in victory in every relationship; beginning with your relationship with your spouse, with your parents, your children, and going on to the ends of the earth. Remember these two principles; the son of a king and for My sake.

I hope that this word was a warning and an encouragement to us this morning. Have a blessed and beautiful day ahead.