2 SAMUEL 13 FLEE FROM LUST2018 Teaching by Jerry B Simmons

Teaching Transcript: 2 Samuel 13 Flee From Lust

You are listening to FerventWord, an online Bible study ministry with teachings and tools to help you grow deeper in your relationship with God. The following message was taught by Jerry Simmons in 2018. You can turn with me in your Bibles to 2 Samuel chapter 13 this evening. 2 Samuel chapter 13 as we continue to walk through the life of David.

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and then committed murder to try to cover up that sin, and then tried to just carry on with life as if nothing had happened, and then the Lord confronted him, and been learning a lot about the issues of sin, the doctrine of sin, and repentance, and all of that over the past several weeks. And now we move on to 2 Samuel chapter 13, and we're beyond that particular instance in David's life,

But really for the rest of David's life and the rest of our time as we're walking through David's life in 2 Samuel, we're going to be seeing the aftermath of the things that happened there and some of the things that happened within David's family. And boy, chapter 13 is, you might kind of call it a dark chapter. It's not one that you'll probably be excited to consider because the events that transpire here are pretty hideous.

And so we need to look at it as we continue to understand the aspects and the impacts of sin in our life. And so we're going to be considering that this evening. And I pray that the Lord would encourage you and help you to be able to flee from sin and to turn from sin and to not allow sin to have dominion in your life. And so let's begin looking at 2 Samuel chapter 13 by reading verses 1 through 6.

And then we'll jump into the message that the Lord has for us this evening. 2 Samuel 13, verse 1. After this, Absalom, the son of David, had a lovely sister whose name was Tamar. And Amnon, the son of David, loved her. Amnon was so distressed over his sister Tamar that he became sick, for she was a virgin, and it was improper for Amnon to do anything to her.

But Amnon had a friend whose name was Jonadab, the son of Shimea, David's brother. Now, Jonadab was a very crafty man. And he said to him, why are you, the king's son, becoming thinner day after day? Will you not tell me? Amnon said to him, I love Tamar, my brother Absalom's sister. So Jonadab said to him, lie down on your bed and pretend to be ill. And when your father comes to see you, say to him,

Let my sister Tamar come and give me food and prepare the food in my sight that I may see it and eat it from her hand. Then Amnon lay down and pretended to be ill. And when the king came to see him, Amnon said to the king, Please let Tamar, my sister, come and make a couple of cakes for me in my sight that I may eat from her hand. Let's pray.

Lord, as we consider your word this evening and the heavy things that take place, Lord, I pray that you would help us to have an appreciation for the reality, for the issue, and for the damage that is caused by sin. And God, I pray that you would use these words and this account to remind us and to encourage us to draw near to you,

to make sure that we are pursuing you with all of our heart, to keep ourselves far from the things that will bring destruction into our lives and into the lives of those that we love around us. In Jesus' name we pray, amen.

Well, as we've been looking at the life of David, we've been looking at the subject of pursuing God's heart and seeing how David was a man after God's own heart and that he, not that he had God's heart automatically or always, but that he, as the general course of his life, sought to please God. And that's really what it means to pursue God's heart or to be a man after God's own heart. He sought to do God's will. And he sought to do God's will.

He sought to please God. When God replaced Saul, he said, Saul, you didn't obey me, and I found someone better than you who will please me, who will do my will. He's a man after my own heart. And so that obedience to God is this connection to the pleasing God and the pursuing of God's heart.

And as we look at David, we see that that's the general rule of his life. But as I mentioned before, we've been looking at that situation, that time in his life where he didn't pursue God's heart and there was some devastating sin that took place. And now we see that aftermath of that begin to take place within his family as well. I titled the message for this evening,

Flee from lust. As we look at 2 Samuel 13, we're talking about David's son and the lust that led him to commit some hideous cruelty towards his sister. And from that, we, I pray, would learn to flee from lust.

Now, this account here, I would say, is not a direct judgment for David's sin. Like we saw last week, you know, the child that was the product of their adulterous relationship. You know, the Lord dealt with that situation and brought a specific judgment in their life as a result of that. But this isn't like that. It's not like God said, okay, you know, you messed up, so I'm going to mess up your family. But it is part of the reality of sin that there is...

to it. There is damage that is brought. And David, by his example and his example in his own family, is now going to be taken. And it's kind of like...

it's often been said, you know, what you tolerate as a parent, your kids will celebrate. That is like, you know, you just kind of barely put up with it. You know, you're just like, okay, you know, we won't go that far, but like almost to that far. And then that's where your kids live and they take it farther. And that's really what happens is David commits adultery and then murder. We're going to see his sons now

commit rape, and then murder. And it goes further. And their pattern is really after David's as they've watched him, and now they follow suit. And so as we look at these things, it is the aftermath and the consequences that happen. And this is one of the reasons why God tells us to flee from sin.

from lust because these things bring this kind of devastation into our lives. The Apostle Paul tells us in 2 Timothy chapter 2 verse 22, he says to flee also youthful lusts, but pursue righteousness, faith, love, peace with those who call on the Lord out of a pure heart. And notice the contrast, right? Flee lusts, but instead in place of that. So it's not that you, you know, don't run and

It's not that you are not in pursuit, but instead of pursuing lust, replace that with a pursuit of righteousness or a pursuit of God's heart. And that is what needs to be the focus. We can't try to play the middle ground where, hey, I don't really want to go all out and pursue the Lord and really like, you know, try to please him with all my might and with all my mind and heart and soul and strength. And, you know, that...

that's too hard. I'm not going to do that. But I'm also not going to run after sin. So I'm just going to kind of like go in the middle. And Paul is encouraging us here. And I would remind you that you can't do that. That it's really, you're moving in one direction or you're moving in the other direction. And here, as we talk about fleeing from lust, we're talking about pursuing God's heart as we look and see the damage and the destruction that lust can bring.

Well, we're going to look at this account and see what happens here with Amnon and his, you know, issue of lust. And we're going to look at the first four verses for point number one, and that is flee from lust or be consumed by it. And this is what we need to understand as we begin to talk about lust, that it's not a thing that you can kind of just dabble with or play around with or allow like a little bit in your life, but it's

But sin desires to dominate our lives and it will become a cruel master if we allow sin to exist. And so it is this choice to flee from lust, to run from it, or to

The other option is to be on the path, to be consumed by it. We pick this up in verse 1 again. It says,

Now, you might remember that David had several wives, and he had children through these various wives. And so Amnon is actually David's firstborn. And then Absalom came from, I think, his third wife. And Absalom is the thirdborn. But then from that same wife brought forth a sister. And so Tamar and Absalom are from the same mom.

And then David is their father. Amnon is the oldest brother, different mom, but of course, same father. David is their father. And so they are, you know, half brothers and sisters as a result. And so the situation is here is Absalom and his sister. And then there's Amnon, the older brother, and he...

Well, he's begun to pay some attention to Tamar. And it says here in verse 1 that he loved her. Now, love is...

use here, much like it can be used in the English language as well. It's really not talking about what we might understand in the biblical sense of God's love, not the 1 Corinthians chapter 13 kind of love. When it says that he loved her, it is really describing that he was lusting after her. He calls it love.

But in reality, it is not love. It is lust. And that's something that happens in the English language too, right? People call things love that are not love, but they use the word to describe instead this idea of lust. And I'm going to define it this way to kind of keep it simple. The word lust, it means a strong desire for sinful pleasure. And then the word love, it means a strong desire for someone to experience what is best, right?

I think this is a good way to think about these concepts of lust and love. And as we talk about these things tonight, I would encourage you to understand that as I use the word lust, there's an automatic association in our mind with sexual sin, with the word lust. But it really is not limited to that. And so we need to consider this idea of lust as the strong desire for sin, right?

And every one of us has strong desires for sin. Every one of us battles desires and cravings of our sinful nature to do things, to engage in behaviors that are not of God, that are hurtful, that are harmful, that are destructive. And it is the lusts of our flesh. It is a reality that we all face. And when it comes into...

an issue of relationship with one another, lust will become incredibly selfish and say, I want this craving and I want what I want. It's my selfish pleasure at the expense of whatever is good for you. But love, in contrast to that,

says, I will deny myself so that you have what's best, and I have your best interest in mind. God, of course, is the ultimate picture of this, that he, well, he sent his only begotten son to die upon the cross for us. Love was demonstrated at the cross as God desired what was best for us and was willing to provide that even as his own expense.

And so as we talk about this subject of fleeing from lust this evening, I would encourage you to understand that we're not just talking about sexual sin, although that may be appropriate for what you're experiencing and what you're going through. But maybe, you know, you're just craving ice cream like Pastor Poole is.

And I might use that a few times tonight because it's pretty, you know, safe to just talk about craving ice cream without getting into any details. But so, yeah, you might be having, you know, some kind of craving, some kind of pull towards sin in that way. And understand that is, that's lust, right?

It's not limited to that specific context. Think about what Paul told Titus in Titus chapter 3, verse 3. He says, We were serving. We were enslaved to various lusts.

And we all have different things that we battle with and different things that our flesh and our sinful nature craves. Paul talks to Timothy in 1 Timothy chapter 6 about the lust for money, the lust for wealth. And you could think about the lust for power and the lust for ice cream and, you know, whatever. Fill in the blank, you know, the things that you're drawn to and you know what those are. And

The Lord would remind us this evening that those are things that we need to flee from. We need to be actively engaged in turning the other way and running from them. Now, for the account that we're reading this evening here in 2 Samuel 13, lust for Amnon was a sexual desire and it has begun now to consume him.

He loved her. He lusted after her. In verse 2, it says, he was so distressed over his sister Tamar that he became sick, for she was a virgin and it was improper for Amnon to do anything to her. But Amnon had a friend whose name was Jonadab, the son of Shimea, David's brother. Now, Jonadab was a very crafty man. And he said, why are you, the king's son, becoming thinner day after day? Will you not tell me? Amnon said to him, I love Tamar, my brother Absalom's sister.

Amnon has become sick because he is so consumed by this lust. This is what lust will do in our lives. It desires to dominate our lives. And now Amnon,

Amnon is not able to sleep. He's not able to eat. He's not able to rest. He has become sick because he is consumed. And it's so affecting him that it's become noticeable to his friend, or really his cousin, Jonadab. And Jonadab comes in and says, hey man, are you on a diet? You know, tell me what's your secret? Why are you getting thinner and thinner? It's not from eating ice cream all day. You know, what's your secret? What's wrong with you? And he's like, I don't know.

And Amnon lets him know, here's what's going on. I'm sick. I am just so upset. I'm so distressed because I love Timar, but I can't have her. She's Absalom's sister. And the way that it describes their relationship throughout this passage, it gives us an indication that

If Absalom wasn't in the picture, Amnon would have maybe acted on this already. But there was some intimidation there with Absalom and some fear that he had of Absalom. He can't act out. He can't fulfill this lust that he has. And so he has just been there brooding in it, being consumed by it. Now he has become sick.

Let me tell you that Amnon was sick because he believed the lie that his flesh was telling him. Again, we all have these battles and we all have a sinful nature that screams at us about the thing that it craves, the thing that it wants. And if we believe what our flesh is telling us, we will find ourselves like Amnon in a place of being sick.

either from diving into and giving into those cravings of the flesh, or if we're in a position where we're not able to immediately fulfill it, then we're just consumed by it. We're distressed over it. We're wrecked because we cannot give into what it is that our flesh is demanding. And when you're in the midst of that, it doesn't feel like you have a choice.

It doesn't feel like you get to choose whether or not you're going to feel that way or have those desires. It doesn't feel like you have a choice. And Amnon, I'm sure, did not feel like he had a choice. His flesh was demanding this. He was sick over it. He was consumed by it. He was dominated by this desire, by this craving that he had. And we all know what that's like. It doesn't feel like you have a choice. But the Lord would remind you this morning, you do have a

A choice. Because of what Christ has done for us, because of the work that sin has been broken upon the cross, there is a choice for us. Paul tells us in Romans chapter 6 verse 12, therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body that you should obey it in its lusts. Don't let sin reign. You have sinned.

The opportunity. You have the option to not let sin reign. If you let it, it will reign. If you don't prevent it, if you don't pursue God's heart, if you don't flee from lust, lust will reign in your mortal body and you will obey its lusts. You will obey its cravings.

But therefore, because of what Christ has done, don't let it rain. Don't just give in. Don't just give up and do what your body wants you to do. Do what your sinful nature wants you to do. Don't just give in. Don't just live in that condition. Instead, and how to do that, how to not let sin rain. I mean, it's one thing to say, don't let sin rain. And we all go, okay, but it doesn't feel like I have a choice. So don't let it rain.

How do I get past that? Well, Paul goes on in the next verse. In Romans chapter 6 verse 13, he says, Paul says, look, here's how to do that. First of all, don't let sin reign. But how do I do that? Well,

You have to make a choice. Don't present your body and say, here I am, sinful desires, you know, go ahead and let's do what it is that you're craving. But instead, present yourself to God. Again, it's this idea of fleeing from lust. It's this idea of pursuing God and presenting yourself to God and seeking to please God. And there are some active things that you must do that are opposite lust.

those cravings that you have in order to walk with God in this way. Present yourselves to God instead of presenting yourself to sin and to the lust of the flesh. We need to flee from lust or we will be consumed by it. Again, this applies to whatever it is that you might be craving, desiring, that strong desire for sin is,

that is in you. It might be like Amnon's. It might be that kind of situation, but it might be something different. You remember the account, of course, of Cain and Abel. And Cain was furious with Abel and jealous of Abel because his offering was accepted. And it leads up to where Cain commits the first murder and kills Abel. But before he does, God meets with Cain. And God tells Cain, why are you angry? Why

In Genesis chapter 4, he says, why are you angry? And why has your countenance fallen? Why are you distressed, Cain? Why are you sick? Why are you consumed right now with anger? And God tells him, if you do well, will you not be accepted? If you do not do well, sin lies at the door. Its desire is for you, but you should rule over it. Cain, you have a choice here. You're being consumed with anger right now. And that's going to lead you down this path that, well, it's going to be very destructive.

It's desires for you. It's right there at the door. It's going to dominate you if you let it, but you should rule over it, God tells Cain. That's what he says to each one of us as well. You should rule over it. Sin wants to dominate your life. Lust wants to consume your mind and your heart and make you sick, but you should rule over it. You should present your members to God. You should present yourself to God and pursue his heart, fleeing from lust, but

not allowing it to exist and to continue and to be the boss in your life. Flee from lust or be consumed by it. Moving on down to verses three through six, we get point number two, and that is flee from schemes to fulfill your lust. Sometimes when we have these cravings, there's some

Real barriers for us to be able to give in to the lust and the thing that we're craving and that forbidden fruit that we're desiring. And we can find ourselves beginning to scheme, to plot and to plan, to figure out how can I gratify this craving that I have.

Verse 3 again, Amnon had a friend whose name was Jonadab, the son of Shimea, David's brother. Now, Jonadab was a very crafty man. Notice he was a crafty man. He's a scheming man. And he said to him, why are you, the king's son, becoming thinner day after day? Will you not tell me? Amnon said to him, I love Tamar, my brother Absalom's sister. Verse 5, so Jonadab said to him, lie down on your bed and pretend to be ill. Verse 5,

And when your father comes to see you, say to him, please let my sister Tamar come and give me food and prepare the food in my sight that I may see it and eat it from her hand.

So Jonadab, Amnon's cousin, comes in. He notices the weight loss. He notices, hey, you've not been kind of normal lately. You don't have the same jokes going around. You've been down and distressed. What's going on? And as Amnon tells him the situation, he starts to show his craftiness and comes up with a scheme. Lay down on your bed and pretend to be ill. Lick your palms. I hear that's a good trick. Ferris Bueller's Day Off reference.

pretend to be sick, and you know, as the dad does, you know, hey, whenever one of his sons is sick, he'll come by, and he'll come visit you. Okay, and then when dad comes, when David comes, then you could say, oh, I would feel so much better, dad, if Tamar would just come, and she makes these amazing cinnamon rolls, and they're just so good. You know how the cinnamon rolls are good. When you're not feeling well, it's like comfort food, dad, so maybe you could send in Tamar to make those cinnamon rolls for me. I'd feel so much better, I think, if

I had those cinnamon rolls. And so he comes up with this scheme, with this plot. And Amnon is going to now put it into practice. Now, it's interesting because this scheme, again, it seems like this is because the whole reason why this scheme was necessary is because Amnon was afraid of Absalom.

The way that Absalom is mentioned throughout this passage, it seems that Absalom suspected this kind of desire already, that this has been going on. This has developed over time that Absalom knows. In fact, it's like the first thing when he sees his sister, you know, weeping and mourning later on. He's like, he knows immediately, oh, it's because your brother did this to you, didn't he? And he knows, like, and so he's been observing. There's been some interactions. There's already been some things developing, right?

And Amnon, he can't figure out a way to act on his desires because he's afraid of Absalom. But here now is this scheme that Jonadab helps him come up with so that he doesn't have to face Absalom directly.

In this craftiness, in this scheming, he says, lie down on your bed and pretend to be ill. And that way David will send her to you. And then you don't have to go, you know, get her. You don't have to go and work out a situation. Here's a situation that will be brought to you.

In verse 6, it tells us, Amnon lay down and pretended to be ill. It's like immediately, like, that's a great idea. I'm going to do that right now today. Go ahead, leave. I'm going to go lay down and pretend to be sick. And when the king came to see him, Amnon said to the king, please let Tamar, my sister, come and make a couple of cakes for me in my sight that I may eat from her hand. And so Amnon schemes to fulfill his lust. He begins now to pretend. He begins now to...

to go about this plot, to try to accomplish the gratifying of his desires, of his lust. Pastor Dave Guzik points out, Amnon took Jonadab's wicked advice quickly and completely. It's too bad that men don't often respond to godly advice the same way. And that's something for us to consider a bit. When people tell us what we want to hear,

We're like all over it, right? Someone you love, someone you respect gives you good counsel. And when it's what you want to hear, then it's like, I'm on it. But when it's not what you want to hear, then it's, you know, drag your feet kicking and screaming kind of thing. And for us as those who desire to pursue God's heart, there really does need to be a quickness at responding. When God speaks, God

That we would be as quick at responding, you know? I always like those examples where it tells us, you know, God said this, and so, you know, Moses did what God commanded, or Paul did what God commanded. You know, there's that connection. God said, and then boom, Paul did. God did, or you know, God said, and servant did. God said, servant did. And that is how it needs to be in our lives. And so many times, God speaks, not even just a friend or a cousin, but God speaks to

And we're reluctant and we're slow to put it into practice. But when it gratifies our flesh, when it's like, oh, appealing, it tickles that itch, then it's like, oh, yeah. And then we're quick to jump in and to do what it is that we're craving to do, what it is that you've given me license to do because you said the thing that I wanted to do and the fulfillment and the gratifying of those desires.

Paul the Apostle in Romans chapter 13 says, put on the Lord Jesus Christ and make no provision for the flesh to fulfill its lust. This is the opposite of scheming to fulfill, that you would make no provision. Actually take steps, he says, so that your flesh doesn't have that opportunity to fulfill its lust. Take steps to actually put yourself in situations where you're protected from fulfilling those things.

And so flee from schemes to fulfill your lust. That is to make no provision for the flesh. Pastor Warren Wiersbe says that faith is living without scheming. And so that's something to consider when you find yourself plotting, scheming, pretending, you know, well, if I do this and then I can work, you know, and when you're having to do those kinds of

plans and plots, understand you're headed into dangerous waters. You're headed into dangerous territory, and you need to like stop and think, am I just trying to gratify my flesh right now? Because faith is living without scheming. Am I really trusting God? I'm pursuing God's heart if I'm scheming and plotting and pretending in order to accomplish what it is that I want to accomplish.

Going on now to verses 7 through 14, we get point number three, and that is flee from the selfishness of lust. And here's kind of the core of the events that happen here. I'm going to read through these verses, and then we'll talk about them briefly. Verse 7, David sent home to Tamar saying, now go to your brother Amnon's house and prepare food for him. So Tamar went to her brother Amnon's house, and he was lying down. Then she took flour and kneaded it, made cakes in his sight, and baked the cakes.

And she took the pan and placed them out before him, but he refused to eat. Then Amnon said, have everyone go out from me. And they all went out from him. Then Amnon said to Tamar, bring the food into the bedroom that I may eat from your hand. And Tamar took the cakes which she had made and brought them to Amnon, her brother, in the bedroom. Now when she had brought them to him to eat, he took hold of her and said to her, come, lie with me, my sister. Verse 12.

But she answered him, no, my brother, do not force me. For no such thing should be done in Israel. Do not do this disgraceful thing. And where could I take my shame? And as for you, you would be like one of the fools in Israel. Now, therefore, please speak to the king for he will not withhold me from you. However, he would not heed her voice.

and being stronger than she, he forced her and lay with her. It's a heavy passage. It's not one that we would enjoy reading through or considering. And yet, it is one of the realities of life that we face. Lust has its roots in severe and wretched selfishness. Our sinful desires, our sinful cravings,

In this context, of course, we can see the hideousness of it, but many times in our own lives, that craving for ice cream that we have, we've softened it in our own mind. It's not that bad. It's not that big of a deal, but the reality is it's the same type of selfishness that's demonstrated when we're allowing lust to dominate our lives, and it's the seeking after what I want, what

I desire what I'm craving at the expense of whoever needs to be, you know, used in any way or laid aside in any way. This is a wretched and horrible act that Amnon has committed. Utter, complete, despicable selfishness.

There's no explaining this away in the sense of like, you know, it was okay because no, like there is nothing good about this situation. It is an absolute demonstration of the realities of sin, the horridness of sin. And it needs to be a reminder to us of the devastation and the seriousness of sin that we would flee from it, that we would not entertain it, that selfishness is...

destructive and hurtful and harmful, we need to turn from it. Again, not to entertain it or dabble it or kind of meddle with it a little bit, but that we need to flee, to run to God away from those cravings of our flesh. Think about what James tells us in James chapter four, verse one and two. He says, where do wars and fights come from among you?

There James is explaining, look, there's an issue. And James is writing to the church, right?

He's writing to believers in the church and he says, look, there's battles in the church. There's battles between you and other people. And you need to stop and recognize the source of those battles. There's personality conflicts. There's issues around you. You need to stop and recognize where do they come from? He says they come from the desire for pleasure that war within your members. The desire for pleasure. That's

That lust within. He says, you lust and do not have. You are out for yourself. There's that selfishness that is inherent in that situation. And it's causing this friction and this battle. And that's where it's coming from. You murder and covet and cannot obtain. You fight and war. He says, but you don't have because you don't ask. And then he goes on to say, if you do ask, you don't receive because you ask amiss.

that you may spend it on your pleasures. Again, it's about self. And so when you do ask God, it's not really love what's best for others, what's best for someone else. It's, Lord, help me fulfill the lust of my flesh. And don't expect that kind of prayer to be answered.

This issue of selfishness, it's not just one that Amnon faced. And you don't have to commit this same crime that Amnon committed to have this issue of selfishness in your life. It's a reality that we all face. And we need to learn to flee from lust.

to not act out on these selfish desires, on these things that we crave, that we desire. Again, lust is a strong desire for sinful pleasure. And it could be a good pleasure just out of the context of what God has prescribed. A sexual relationship is a good thing in the context that God has established. But outside of that, well, then it becomes a sinful pleasure. And

That is the case many times, that the enemy will take what God has established for good and twist that into something that is perverted as a result of his rebellion against God. And we must flee from that. We must flee. Instead of desiring that sinful pleasure, we need to desire for people around us to experience what is best. Love is selfless love.

Lust is selfish. And we don't always recognize the selfishness that is involved in the lusts of our flesh, but we need to recognize it. As you look at this horrid picture of Amnon and his sister, it is an apt illustration for the lusts that you may face and the battle that may rage in your heart and in your mind, the lust of the flesh.

Well, moving on to verses 15 through 18, here we get point number four, and that is flee from the unfulfilled misery of lust. Here's the ironic thing. Here's your flesh screaming at you and telling you, you need this. If you don't eat this,

Two gallons of ice cream, you know, you're going to be miserable, and you got to have it, and you're not going to be able to rest if you don't have it, and you know, your life is just going to be a wreck, and boy, things would be so much better if you would just eat that two gallons of ice cream. But then you eat the two gallons of ice cream, and how do you feel? Miserable. This is the reality of what sin is, and our lust does. It doesn't fulfill us. It just makes us more miserable. Verse 15 says,

Then Amnon hated her exceedingly. Wait, remember in verse 1 it said he loved her. He desired her. He was scheming and plotting and planning so that they could be together somehow. But now Amnon hated her exceedingly so that the hatred with which he hated her was greater than the love with which he had loved her. And Amnon said to her, Arise, be gone. So she said to him, No, indeed, this evil of sending me away is worse than

Amnon goes from cruel to even more cruel. Now he hates her. Now he can't stand her presence. Now Amnon

He shuts her out and locks the door behind. It is the epitome of this expression of lust, that it's, I fulfilled my desire. I fulfilled my craving. I fulfilled and I got what I wanted. Now I'm done with you. Man, that selfishness is wretched and it's horrible. And yet in the midst of this, it's not just that he is selfish. If his sinful nature was still craving, then...

He would keep her around. But the reality is that now that he is given into, he's caved in to this desire of his sinful nature, he's not satisfied. He's not fulfilled. It's such a quick change from this scheming to be together to this hatred and this pushing away. It's one of the reasons why we need to be very careful about trusting in how we feel.

How fast can you go from laughing to crying? I mean, it can happen instantly, right? If someone, you know, is telling a great story and then you hear some news, it's like, you know, on a dime, we can change from laughter to mourning and mourning to laughter. We can go back and forth and

Good orators, not like me, but people purposefully manipulate our emotions in that way. If someone can get you involved emotionally laughing, one of the things about viral videos, there's a kind of study like why do videos go viral and they get shared. They've decided that the more emotions you can hit in a short amount of time, the more likely you

your video will be shared and will go viral and be shared by everybody. That if you can hit, so if you can, you know, make people feel several different things back to back, it's those hooks, you know, and it's catchy. And then we're caught up in it in the same way that the lust of the flesh, it catches us. And if we let it dominate, we'll be dominated by it. And then in the next moment, well, we'll behave like

Amnon, because we're not fulfilled. We're unsatisfied. When the flesh is screaming at us to give in and it needs this thing, it is in our mind, if you think logically, well, if I feed that desire, then it won't be so hungry, right? When your stomach growls, then you feed it and then it stops growling. And so we think, well, my flesh is demanding this and I need this and I'm wanting this and I'm desiring this sinful thing.

But it doesn't work like your physical body works in that way. If you feed a sinful craving, it doesn't lessen the craving. Instead, it stimulates the craving. It stimulates the issue of sin. If you're craving ice cream, that might be a craving that you can satisfy. But if you're craving sin, you'll give in to that sin and still not be satisfied. And here is Amnon just saying,

Worse off than before. He's not better because he's given in, because he's satisfied this craving. He's worse than before. He's more sick. He's more distraught. Now he has guilt on top of this issue of sin. Now he is in a worse place as a result. I recently read over the past few days through the book of Ecclesiastes, an incredible book of the journey of Solomon and

trying to find fulfillment and pleasure apart from God in this life. And he tries everything. I mean, here's a guy who has unlimited resources. He is the king. He has more wealth than anybody ever has before him. He is unlimited in his resources, in his power. And he says, I used that. And I did not restrain myself. Anything pleasurable or desirable that I wanted to do, I just did it.

And he chronicles the journey there in Ecclesiastes. And you know what he found? Pursuing all the pleasures that he could and all the parties that he could and everything that he wanted to, in the end, it was not fulfilling. So then he sought to be effective in the workplace and he built great buildings and accomplished those things and gave everything and just put great effort and great resources into it. And in the end, he decided, I'm still not fulfilled. I'm still messed up. I'm still a wreck.

And on and on, I pursued wisdom and intellectual things. And then still I'm unfulfilled. That it's the chronicle of his journey, trying out all these things, but unfulfilled because he wasn't pursuing God. He wasn't pursuing God's heart. Lust is unfulfilling. And looking at the account of David, one commentator said, if one woman is not enough, a thousand women will not be enough.

That issue with David and Bathsheba, it was not just that moment that was the issue in David's heart, but it was the pattern of his life, actually. There was an issue there for him. If one woman is not enough, that woman that you're looking at, she's not going to be enough either. If your guy's not enough, that guy that you're dreaming about, he's not going to be enough either. The lusts of the flesh do not satisfy.

Instead, they leave us unfulfilled and more miserable than when we started. And so Paul tells us in Galatians 5, verse 16, I say then walk in the spirit and you shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh. Again, we need to fill our lives with the things of God and pursue God's heart and walk in the spirit.

to help keep us from fulfilling the lust of the flesh and leaving us in this place of misery and being unfulfilled. You can have the abundant life that the Lord promises, but not through entertaining and fulfilling the lusts of the flesh.

Well, finishing it up in verses 19 through 22, we have point number five, and that is flee from the damaging results of lust. In verse 19, it says, then Tamar put ashes on her head and tore her robe of many colors that was on her and laid her hand on her head and went away crying bitterly. And Absalom, her brother, said to her, has Amnon, your brother, been with you? But now hold your peace, my sister. He is your brother. Do not take this thing to heart. So Tamar remained desolate in her brother Absalom's house.

But when King David heard of all these things, he was very angry. And Absalom spoke to his brother Amnon, neither good nor bad. For Absalom hated Amnon because he had forced his sister Tamar. Lust is an issue really of selfishness and the fulfilling selfishness

lust that we have, desiring, they're fulfilling the cravings and the desires that we have, those sinful desires, it's rooted in selfishness. But the damage that occurs when we do that is not limited to just ourself. It's selfish to

But that doesn't mean that we're the only ones impacted. And sometimes when people talk about issues of sin, you know, it's like, well, I know it's not the best thing. I know it's not the good thing, but you know, hey, I'm the only one who's harmed by it. But that's never the case. Sin never only harms the person who is committing the sin. Sin damages everyone around. And so here's Amnon. He is damaged.

He's unfulfilled. He's miserable. He's now guilty on top of that. He is in a far worse place now than he was before. Tamar, well, she's damaged. She's in a far worse place. She's devastated. It describes her as being desolate in her brother's house. The idea there is that she went on and lived the rest of her life without being married. He robbed her of a rich, abundant life.

It was a horrible, atrocious thing that Amnon did to her. Very wicked. There's great damage as a result. The damage goes on though, and we'll continue to see that as we pick up next week in chapter 13 here where we're leaving off. And now we're going to see Absalom is now going to plot to kill Amnon. And so now Absalom is messed up also as a result of Amnon's sin.

And there's going to be some battles that take place. And Absalom is going to be out of Jerusalem for a while. And him and his dad aren't going to get along for a long time. And then he's going to come back and try to steal the throne. And there's all this damage that happens. You can trace it back to this situation with Amnon. But then, as I said at the beginning when we started, you can also rewind it just a little bit further and see David set the pattern for his children.

And it maybe seemed like it was okay in the sense that, you know, well, it was just me and Bathsheba and I killed Uriah, but we lost the child. And so now it's all resolved. The damage was kind of contained in this little circle. And it's like, okay, well, I mean, that was damaging. That was hurtful. But, you know, it was limited to that. But no, no, the damage of David's sin extended forever.

to his family. And the pattern that he set was followed and then furthered by his children. There's great devastation. There's damaging results to the lust of the flesh. Flee from lust. This is why God calls sin, sin. Not because he wants to keep us from something that is so good and so amazing and so pleasurable.

He calls sin, sin because he knows, look, this is the damage that it brings. It wrecks you. It leaves you miserable. It consumes and dominates your life. And it affects the people around you and damages it. It hurts. It brings great destruction. And that's why God says, don't do it. Flee from lust. It is the same thing as pursuing God's heart.

But here in chapter 13, we have this incredibly dark and wicked scenario, this wicked act that has taken place to remind us of the wickedness of sin, the wickedness of lust, the wretchedness of it. And I pray for each of us that we would learn from that, to flee from lust, to recognize it for what it is, to not water it down and kind of put up with it. It's not love. It's not what's best for us or for others around us.

Amnon believed the lies that his flesh was telling him and it made him sick until he gave into it and then he was sicker. Don't let that be the case for you. Peter tells us in 1 Peter 4, since Christ suffered for us in the flesh, arm yourselves also with the same mind for he who has suffered in the flesh has ceased from sin.

that he should no longer live the rest of his time in the flesh for the lusts of men, but for the will of God. He says, look at Christ. Look at what Christ did, how he denied himself and took up the cross to be obedient to the Father. And that's your model. That's your example. He says, so that you, so that I would no longer live the rest of our time. We've lived enough of our time pursuing the lusts of the flesh. We've given enough time to that.

But now, as a result of what Christ has done, we shouldn't give any more time for that. No more time for pursuing the lusts of men, but instead for the will of God. And that is exactly the way it's described as David was a man after God's own heart because he pursued the will of God. This is what we need to be about. Pursuing the will of God. Pursuing what pleases God. Fleeing from lusts.

in pursuit of God's will, what's good and godly and uplifting, that is what needs to consume our lives because that's what's best for us and for everyone around us. I'll finish up with this quote from Warren Wiersbe and Kim's going to come up and lead us in some worship. Warren Wiersbe says, before you yield to temptation, look back and recall God's goodness to you.

Look ahead and remember the wages of sin. Look around and think of all the people who might be affected by what you do. And then look up and ask God for the strength to say no. We all will face temptation. We all will face the lust of the flesh. And it's helpful in the midst of that battle and in the midst of those cravings and desires when our flesh is yelling and screaming at us.

to look back and think about what God has done. God has been good to you. And then look ahead and understand that the wages of sin is death. You know, you've gone there before and you know it doesn't fulfill. Don't believe the lie. The wages of sin is death. It brings destruction. And then look around, he says. Start to think about what does this do in your family, in your workplace, in

What does this do to the people around you? There's people who will be affected. There's people who will be damaged as a result. And in light of all that, look up and ask God, God, would you help me to say no, to flee from lust, to walk in the spirit so I don't fulfill the lust of the flesh. And so as Kim leads us in these closing songs, I would encourage you to allow the Lord to minister to your heart. Again, we all have...

the lust of the flesh. We all face battles. We all have cravings. We all desire sin. It's part of our nature. And it's not a little thing. It's not just nothing. It's not something to just kind of like blink our eye at or just kind of wink at. It's like, oh yeah, not that bad. No, we need to recognize there's a great deal of destruction that comes

And that sin desires to dominate your life. And so let's invite the Lord to help us flee from lust, to help us walk in the spirit, to help us pursue his heart. Now, the good thing is we have the blood of Jesus Christ that was shed for us so that when we do fall and fall,

We do. And when we give in to that craving and when we don't flee from lust, that we're able to come to the Lord and receive the grace and the mercy and be forgiven. And it doesn't mean that we experience no results or no damages or no consequences, but...

It does mean that we get to go forward with God on our side. And that broken fellowship with God that happens as a result of that sin, that gets to be restored and God will walk with you through the damages, through the consequences, through the issues that come as a result of sin, and he will help you. It's far better if we don't go there to begin with, but don't let the issue, don't let the fall keep you

from coming back to God and pursuing God's heart because that's always what's best for you no matter where you're coming from. A good week or just an absolute wrecked week because you've been involved in the lust of the flesh. Pursuing God's heart is what's best. And so let's do that. Let's speak to the Lord. Let's invite the Lord to speak to us. And also during this time, as always, we want to encourage you to minister to one another. And so as the Lord leads, maybe you need prayer.

And you can invite someone around you to pray for you. Maybe you need to pray for someone or minister to someone, share a scripture or something that's on your heart. Then feel free to do that as well to one another as we worship the Lord together. We pray you have been blessed by this Bible teaching. The power of God to change a life is found in the daily reading of his word. Visit ferventword.com to find more teachings and Bible study resources.