[0:00] Take your Bibles if you would and turn with me to 2 Samuel chapter 15. And I would like to walk you through a little bit of the story of Absalom and maybe learn some principles that we can apply.
[0:21] How we deal with sin in our lives has so much effect on so many things in our family. David has sinned and you know that and he hasn't dealt well with his sin.
[0:32] Instead of confessing it and getting it right, he just kept trying to hide it. And it just got worse and worse. It was one thing to look over and see the lady and lust after her as she bathed.
[0:43] It was another thing to invite her to his room. It was yet another thing to take her and act as though she was his wife. It was another thing to try to get her husband to come home so he could cover his sin.
[0:57] It's an even worse thing to send a note in the hand of his buddy, one of his best men, and to send that note with that guy to another one of his best men to say, kill him, make sure he's dead, make sure he dies.
[1:10] And he got away with it, apparently, temporarily. But the rest of his story is going to reap the repercussions. It's going to continue to happen.
[1:22] And so I'd like to talk to you. 2 Samuel 15, once it came to pass after this, that Absalom prepared chariots and horses and 50 men to run before him. And there's a whole lot of Bible here.
[1:34] And I could go detailed through every verse. But I'm going to kind of go in great strokes and then try to take you to five points tonight. But Nathan has now confronted David about his sin.
[1:45] And somebody said, of all blindness, the worst kind is that which makes us blind to ourselves. That's what's happened to old Dave. You know, he could see everybody else's sin for sure.
[1:56] It's always easy to see people's sin. Other people's sin is easier for me to see than it is to see my own. It's hard to look at myself. It's easier to see what's in your life than it is to see that little, that big two-by-four that's in my own eye.
[2:08] In the judgment that Nathan told David, the sword would not depart from his house, and David would pay fourfold. The consequences in the Bible are horrendous, horrible.
[2:21] Amnon, Absalom, Adonijah, how do you say that guy's name, were all killed and the baby died. Four died. His daughter Tamar was raped by her brother.
[2:34] He and his wives are going to be publicly humiliated as his son Absalom takes him up on the roof, which was a sign that he had taken power, puts tents up there, and publicly takes advantage of them.
[2:47] David experiences one tragedy after another for the rest of his life. Those few minutes of passion were not worth it. I don't think anybody who reads the story can think that.
[2:59] But I want you to understand a big truth here, and this will help you, I think, when the idea that you're going to face your sin when you get to heaven, I don't really believe that's scriptural. Your sin in heaven is already taken care of.
[3:12] It's already under the blood. When you get to heaven, he's not going to call you out and say, let me remind you of what you did when you're 12, 14, 18, 22, and heavy, heavy hangs over your head. It's all been taken care of.
[3:23] But on the other hand, in the Bible, you're going to reap the consequences of sin. David gets to heaven. God says, ain't nobody ever been like David to me. David's a man after my own heart.
[3:35] But David's going to suffer, not at the judgment seat, but during his life. Sins are forgiven. Blood's covered them. They're forgotten. But sins have consequences.
[3:47] Rebellion has consequences. God's discipline in the story is not an angry judge, but a loving father. Helping us to learn to love and trust him. It may cause us to limp for the rest of our lives, but it will make us be more humble and trust God.
[4:02] Jacob would limp for the rest of his life. His discipline makes me holy, prepares us for service, and gives us a way to help others, to make us more productive. And as we respond correctly, we can grow.
[4:15] They lost a baby, but God still had mercy, because that same woman will be the mother of Solomon, who will be the next king. Amnon thought his half-sister Tamar was beautiful, and he lusted after her.
[4:29] And he was doing just what he'd seen his daddy do. Take what you want. You're the son of the king. Take what you want. And so following his dad's steps, he takes a woman he shouldn't have, and he sins, and he thinks he can get away with it.
[4:42] The sins of the fathers have great effect on the children. That's a harsh thing, because I'm a dad and a granddad. I often see my own mistakes repeated in my kids, and sometimes when I see it, I'm like, where in the world did they get that?
[4:56] And then I think, I know where they got that. Sometimes it seems magnified. Maybe it's because I'm seeing them. Amnon rapes his half-sister, and then he hates her. His crazed lust made him think that he loved her, but he hates her now.
[5:09] And Absalom, her brother, knows what happens, and he begins to plot his revenge. He invites his brothers, and especially Amnon, to a banquet, and he kills him. He waited two years before he made his move.
[5:22] He follows his dad's example. When he brought his brother in there to get ready to kill him, he got them all drunk, like he got his buddy. Then Absalom runs for his life.
[5:33] It'll be five years before David and Absalom will see each other face to face. Absalom will cause trouble and finally get to see David, because he'll burn Joab's fields and make Joab come see him. Absalom will kick David out of his kingdom, kick him off of his throne.
[5:49] So when I read the story, and I hear the story, and I always am trying to find the application that God would have us to look at, and I'm just going to give you one I think I can learn for me in this.
[6:00] I want to give you five things, basically about how not to raise an Absalom. As a pastor, how not to train men that would do this. Our job is to reproduce ourselves, and I don't want to develop an Absalom out of my son.
[6:15] So let me give you five things that I see, and you can consider them and see what you think, and I'll be glad to talk to you about them. Number one, go with me to 2 Samuel 13, 22.
[6:26] Number one, take a stand and discipline sin when you see it. Take a stand and discipline sin when you see it. In the story, Amnon takes Tamar.
[6:44] David knows. The brothers know. And David does nothing. I know, and I think you know, that David hated that it happened. I know that David in his heart thought to himself, that's terrible.
[6:56] I can't believe the boy did that. I'm sure he's just as grieved as he can be. But he didn't do anything about it. And as I raise children, it's easy to not discipline my children.
[7:10] And as I deal with men, so many times when I'm working with guys, there's something going on, and I know I ought to say something, but it's hard. So let me just read some verses here with you.
[7:21] 2 Samuel 13, 22. Amnon was so vexed that he fell sick for his sister Tamar, for she was a virgin, and Amnon thought it hard for him to do anything to her.
[7:32] So Amnon sees his sister, and she's a half-sister. You know, the king's got a bunch of wives, so they all got the same daddy, got a whole bunch of different mothers, and he sees her, and he likes her looks, and he thinks to himself, I'm in love with her, and I would like to have her, and so he invites her over, he's got a friend that's going to help him sin, and he sins with her, and David's not going to do anything about it.
[7:54] Now here's a verse you can write beside that. Look up Ecclesiastes 8, 11 with me. Ecclesiastes 8, 11. Because sentence against an evil work is not executed speedily, the heart of the sons of men is fully set in them to do evil.
[8:10] So if there's no consequences, I think I got away with it. If there's no consequences, I think I got away with it. So if I'm raising kids, here's some things that just work your way with me.
[8:25] David has set a very bad example for his children. Probably the thing that weighs the hardest on my heart, the thing that bothers me about being the pastor of Vision Baptist Church, is people look at me way too much, and I don't like it, I'm always uncomfortable with it.
[8:39] You can get away with having a thought, and I probably can't. You can get away with getting your feelings hurt, and I can't get away with it. That's just the way to, but daddy, you can't get away with it either, because your family is watching you.
[8:52] And David set a very bad example for his children. They know about Bathsheba. They know who she is. They know what's happened. They live in the palace.
[9:02] Rumors are flying everywhere. Everybody knows O Uriah's been drunk. Everybody knows David got him drunk. Everybody, this story, they know it. It's amazing how things spread. Very likely he hasn't explained the sin and the consequences, so they'd understand that sin isn't worth it.
[9:19] What if David had sat down with his kids and said, Son, kids, daughters, I made a massive mistake. I was wrong. I sinned against God. I failed God. And let me tell you, the consequences have been horrible.
[9:32] When you do wrong, it hurts. It hurts hard. It hurts long. And I'm going to be honest, and I'm going to just tell you how this sin messed me up, so you won't make my mistake.
[9:42] But apparently David didn't do that. I can tell you honestly, I have never had a problem with alcohol. And I can tell you why I never had a problem. My dad was an alcoholic before I got saved, before I was born and before he got saved.
[9:58] And so my dad got saved while I was still in the womb, and when I came out, I had never seen him drink or anything. But all of my life, I was told this stuff destroyed my life.
[10:10] Stay away from it. And he told those stories. And so I grew up terrified of alcohol. Some of you are like, you can play with it. I'm scared to death because of what it did to my dad. And all the stories never did it to me.
[10:20] I'd never been around it. I remember one day, I did get off the school bus. There was a beer can sitting on the side of the road, and I picked it up and just going to throw it away, like, you know, just toss it in a ditch. And when I went to throw it, stuff came out and just got all over my arms, smelled like beer.
[10:33] And I was terrified. I went in the house. I washed the clothes before Daddy got home. I took a shower. I got all cleaned up. And when he came home, I said, I need to go ahead and tell him because Daddy knew everything. You don't have a dad like that?
[10:43] My dad knew everything. He had eyes in the back of his head, top of his head. He had eyes where he wasn't even there. And he knew. And so I told him, I said, I didn't drink it. I promise I didn't drink it. I was picking it up. I was throwing it. I didn't mean to it. It got in. And I really didn't drink it.
[10:54] But see, I think maybe sin wasn't dealt with and the kids are learning. We tend to want to justify our sin instead of admitting the horrible failure and its consequences.
[11:08] We justify. I dealt with something in my own life this very week. Pride, immaturity, insecurity, welling up inside of me and I had to deal with it.
[11:19] And I had to confess and admit and say I was wrong. And here's the deal. If I won't admit my problem, I teach others to continue in my problem.
[11:30] Can I just say something to your parents? It's like somehow you want to hold yourself up as like the perfect model and never let them know you've dealt with stuff and you've been through junk when maybe God gave you a lesson you could teach them because you are a painting of that mess.
[11:42] And you could show them how grace beat that. You could show them how God worked in that instead of. But I can remember, I can remember laying in the bed at night after this happened in my own life just as a pride thing. It's all inside.
[11:53] Nothing on the outside really but on the inside my pride and my insecurity and my maturity. Laying in the bed, couldn't sleep, thinking about myself. Nurturing myself. Nurturing my pride. Nurturing my hurt. Getting in the shower and thinking about okay maybe I'm wrong but.
[12:06] Isn't that how we do it? And that'll raise an Absalom. It raised an Absalom in the story. I don't know if you can see that but it raised an Absalom. Amnon wants to follow his dad's example.
[12:18] And so he does or he's about to. Maybe he doesn't want to but he does. And he's about to do the same thing his dad did. You can imagine that people know the story in the palace. You understand the palace is just a big house.
[12:30] You understand the palace is just probably pretty easy to know what's going on. You probably don't. It's hard to hide things in your own house. But if you can imagine there's something different about American houses you don't understand.
[12:43] But when you've lived in South America just the way a house feels in America is different than the way it feels in Arequipa. And my neighbor in Arequipa could slide his chair across the floor in his house and I lived in big houses on the rich side of town and I'd hear his chair slide across his floor.
[12:59] So I'll just give you a hint. When they fought we knew it and vice versa. And this is going on in the palace and whatever Bathsheba and David are talking about and whatever Uriah you get the story. And all that's going on and I wonder if he knew.
[13:11] Amnon wants something and he hasn't learned that you can't have everything you want. Amnon wants something and he hasn't learned you can't have everything you want. We must teach our children and ourselves the meaning of the word no.
[13:26] There are just some things I can't do. There are just some things I can't have. We must learn that you don't just get everything you want in life. Amnon has people in his life that are going to help him devise ways to sin.
[13:40] Look if you would at 2 Samuel 13 3. Amnon had a friend. That's a famous message you've heard tons of people preach on that. Amnon had a friend whose name was Jonadab the son of Shimea David's brother and Jonadab was very was a very subtle man.
[13:58] Now you really be careful who my kids friends are because there's a slick one over there that knows how to teach my kid how to get what he wants. Amnon wanted it and Amnon even talked about it to people but Amnon couldn't figure out how to get it done but don't worry Amnon's got a friend who's not a friend.
[14:17] Sin wasn't dealt with in David's life and sin won't be dealt with here. The plot was to pretend to be sick so Tamar would come and cook for him. So I better teach my children to choose right friends and to make right decisions because sin rebellion and disobedience is going to come in their lives and I better learn to deal with it quickly so that the consequences make us realize the folly of our ways.
[14:42] It's always easier to deal with it when it's small. You know the story. Amnon sins and takes Tamar. That could have been first off David could have stopped when his sin was over and said sit down kids we're going to have family devotions and daddy's going to tell you a horrendous story about the wickedness in his own life and how God had to whip my backside so you don't ever make the same mistake I made.
[15:05] But that doesn't fit my pride model so I say it was different when I did it and I lived in a different day and time and everything was okay and I don't ever tell the true story. Then Amnon decided he wanted to have Tamar and Amnon takes Tamar and Amnon rapes Tamar and Tamar comes running out of the house ripping her clothes runs to her brother Absalom and for two years Absalom waits and he plots what he's going to do but I don't know how quickly he started the plotting very likely in my opinion it's a good possibility Absalom was like oh dad will take care of this.
[15:40] Dad's going to he's a good man he loves God he wouldn't do wrong he's not going to let this happen he's going to stop sin he's going to stop it quickly but two years would by nothing happened and so the sin problem is just going to escalate beyond anything we can imagine so if I can get you to remember point number one deal with it while it's small deal with sin you know we took a kid in years ago that lived with us his name was Glenn Schappel and Glenn came to live at our house and our house we had some rules for him and some discipline for him and I told Glenn one time when I had taken away a bunch of privileges and I said I know things are rough and Glenn said oh no every kid learns something they can learn to obey their parents or they can learn to obey the teacher or they will obey the policeman he said I'm just glad you're stopping me quick enough let's deal with sin while it's small let me give you number two go over to 2 Samuel chapter 13 verse 37 don't allow a wall or division even if there's been a failure don't allow the separation to happen between you in 2 Samuel 13 37
[16:48] Absalom fled and went to Talamai the son of Aminahud king of Hesua and David mourned for his son every day it's been two years Amnon has raped Tamar two years have gone by Absalom goes in and kills Amnon after he gets all the brothers drunk he gets all the brothers drunk and he kills Amnon and he runs for his life well what David does he doesn't deal with it quickly and what he next does is just say out of sight out of mind don't have to think about it don't have to deal with it let's just don't worry about this it's okay if there's any way we can ignore this sin let's just ignore it let's just act like it didn't happen he should have dealt with sin immediately but it's been two years David didn't deal with sin he held it in I can't believe that old David didn't think Amnon what you did to your sister was horrible and wicked and you should be killed for that you should have been disciplined you should have at least gone to jail you should have at least been whipped something should have happened but you didn't do it he was probably embarrassed and hurt when you're the pastor your kids often do things that just embarrass the fool out of you our son
[18:07] Chris was famous in Peru he told the teachers when they would fuss at him he would say you don't know who you're dealing with if you try to make me do that homework I'll talk to my dad and he'll fire you so you best leave me alone so he had them all just cow cut he whooped them all another time a man in our church he was an older man he was about 65 years old and I'm like I'm like 25 26 27 28 I'm not sure young guy Chris is old enough to be in his Sunday school class and this man comes to me in a teacher's meeting and he says pastor what do we do if we have a child that won't obey I said you send him down to sit next to his parents in church he said what if I'm afraid of his parents I said you just tell me bless God I ain't afraid of his parents I said who are they he said you so sometimes you're just embarrassed you're just embarrassed that it's your kids I think David might have been he could have punished the boy maybe the crimes would have stopped but he allowed
[19:12] Amnon to get away with murder literally and that only caused more murder he was an enabler a helper you can't hide from your responsibilities of dealing with your children's failures well I don't really like to talk about this but I really felt like this might be a good application for us but you know if you're a parent you got small kids you need to really be careful about working with them because what you can do with a six-year-old you can't do with a 16-year-old and what you can do with a 16-year-old you sure 25-year-old he should not allow this failure to cause him to clam up sin is undisciplined and when it's undisciplined it leads to worse sin Amnon's dead something should have already been done David's guilt might have been why he didn't say anything I wonder if David was like man I don't know I got in big bad trouble and I hated it I don't want my boy to have to go through what I've been through I don't want it something like Nathan saying you are the man I don't want that to happen I don't know now he's got even bigger sin to deal with
[20:14] Absalom has killed Amnon and he goes into hiding he lets the sin cause him to pull away from his children look at the verse Amnon fled and went to this other place and David mourned for his son every day he loved him apparently 2 Samuel 13 39 and the son of David longed to go forth into Absalom for he was comforted concerning Amnon seeing he was dead effectively David's now lost two sons he's lost two sons he lost Amnon who Absalom killed but Absalom is gone for five years with both David has allowed a great division to open we don't discuss that we don't bring it up we don't deal with it we just kind of ignore it so we got to do right keep the door open to restore the relationship with our children now no discipline was made for what Amnon did and we're about to repeat the same mistake with Absalom so before I leave this point first point was deal with sin the second point was don't clam up don't pull away don't just ignore it keep the lines of communication open look at 2 Samuel miki guarantee 2 Samuel 14 32 and absent answer joab behold i send unto thee saying come hither that i may send thee to the king to say wherefore am i come from jeshua and it had been good for me to have been there still now therefore let me see the king's face so what happened was he'd been gone and finally joab helped him get back in town but david still won't see him and he's right there in town all he's got to do is cross the town and he's in there with daddy he could have had a talk with and they could have had a discussion that things could have been fixed but they don't get fixed because i'm embarrassed about your sin son i won't deal with it but i'm embarrassed about it i'm not going to do anything about it so it's big divisions going on i think that tends to happen we ought to deal with it and we don't the discipline should fit the sin look at second samuel 14 24 with me if you would second samuel 14 24 and the king said let him turn to his own house and let him not see my face so absinthe returned to his own house and saw not the king's face so david says uh i'm not going to deal with sin when it first happens and it just keeps multiplying and then he breaks down the walls of communication the lines of communication puts walls up around him won't deal with his son about the thing just kind of ignores it sweeps it under the rug like it's not really there and then the discipline david allows absinthe to come back to the city but he won't see him and it will literally be five years before he talks to him again you ever been one of those families i had a supporting pastor we were talking about his children one time and he told me how many kids he had and so i you know i left there thinking that was how many kids he had i was talking to another preacher i said yeah the pastor was telling me how many kids he had come to find out he had one more kid he didn't tell me about he didn't have that kid it's like that one was never born that's kind of what's going on david loved his son and his son probably loved david absinthe would have really felt justified in handling something that his dad should have handled can you not imagine what absinthe is thinking i'll kill amnon amnon raped our sister rape deserves death that's the rules of our country that's the laws of our country we all know it's right dad should have done it dad didn't do it and since dad didn't do it i will do it and i and dad ought to be glad i did it that ought to be like well amnon got what he had coming but that's not how it worked there's no way to fix this relationship by the way in the whole bible story absalom never apologizes and david never really talks to him about what he's done wrong if i'm going to raise my kids i think i probably ought to try to deal with it soon and while it's small i ought to keep the doors of communication open and i ought to deal with it in the same kind of discipline that the crime deserves in second corinthians chapter 2 and
[24:19] verse 6 the apostle paul is probably talking about the guy in first corinthians chapter 5 that was sleeping with his dad's mother a dad's wife sleeping with his dad's wife what would have been his step mother and he's been disciplined by the church and now in second corinthians chapter 2 and verse 6 paul says sufficient to such a man is this punishment sufficient is the punishment verse 7 so that country wise you ought to forgive him and comfort him verse 8 you ought to confirm your love verse 9 you ought to be obedient and what i'm telling you to do and i forgive this guy and if you don't satan will get the advantage that's in verse 11 satan will get the advantage we're not ignorant of his devices when you under discipline you hurt your kids when you over discipline you hurt your kids because if you over discipline it's like he's just brutally mean and cruel but when you under discipline even the other kids decide to rebel he should be punished he should repent but even punishment has limits if you're too hard you give satan an advantage they should know our love for them even in the punishment we should discipline our children we should forgive and teach to forgive we should forgive and teach to forgive we should i mean let's just deal with it bam it's done let's hug and kiss and make up and it's over let's deal with it in hebrews chapter 12 and verse 15 the bible says looking diligently lest any man fail of the grace of god that's any root of bitterness springing up trouble you and thereby many be defiled if we overreact or we underreact they might not deal with it correctly and bitterness will spring up it'll cause all kind of trouble and a whole bunch of people get messed up but god gave them grace to get over it so if i could say it this way don't wait too late to kiss your son even though he's done wrong look at second samuel 14 33 it's going to be second samuel 15 1 when absinthe starts his move to take over the kingdom second samuel 14 33 and joab came to the king and told him and when he had called for absinthe he came to the king and bowed himself on the ground so the so to the ground before the king and the king kissed absinthe well praise the lord but it's really kind of because he's in public it's really kind of because that's what he needed to do it was a politically expedient move his heart wasn't in it and too much time has gone by and absinthe hasn't been dealt with but if we wait too late to deal gently we'll lose our children i don't know how to say this without just being uh i don't like to do this i don't really preach like this but i need to deal with this problem that my kid has i don't need i need to keep the lines of communication open i need to give the right kind of punishment for the crime he's committed in second samuel chapter 18 in verse 5 it says that the king commanded joab and abishai and it ties saying deal gently for my sake with the young man even absinthe that's funny you didn't deal gently with him daddy you didn't deal gently with him you were mad at him and angry with him five years you didn't let him see your face and y'all been fighting ever since it happened and you've never gotten it right and now he's taken over the kingdom and he's run and he he's finally been run out of the kingdom that he's taken over and he's running for his life and he's got really long hair he only cuts once a year and he's running and his hair gets caught in a tree and he's jerked off of the king's mule which is a a sign of royalty he's hanging there and the men are all scared to kill him because they know david doesn't want him to kill him but joab's like oh he's out of here buddy this guy's a problem and he kills him but what really strikes me so funny in the story is david said be sure and be nice to my son now y'all don't kill him here five years ago you could have done that buddy five years ago you could have done
[28:24] that five years ago you could have dealt with amnon seven years ago seven years ago you could have dealt with amnon you could have stopped it back in the end you could have done something to amnon and absinthe wouldn't have had to do something that you building an absinthe i don't know number four praise character and not physical characteristics look at second samuel 14 25 with me if you would man we can i just say we love to brag on our kids and how good looking they are of course they're only good looking in our eyes they look like us so we think they look good the truth is nobody else thought you was good looking so they probably don't think about your own kid huh how about that uh but look at this but in all israel there was none to be so much praised as absent for his beauty from the bottom of his foot to the top of his head there wasn't a blemish in him this guy from the sole of his foot to the crown of his head there was no bliss this guy didn't have a birthmark buddy i mean this guy this guy if he were alive today he'd be one of them big old fancy muscle-bound models everybody look man he'd be he'd be the tom cruise or whoever it is today that everybody likes rock rock hudson back when i was a kid uh he would that was the rock before there was a rock and uh you punks uh we praise our children and our friends and our co-workers for the wrong things character should be praised hard work should be praised but not physical characteristics first off all those physical characteristics are going to slowly go away you know that guy's got such lovely hair he's probably going to be bald headed look around the room you ever see some pictures of some people you're like that's you with all that hair and he's like yeah i'm really proud of my hair amen and but if you could have just seen me when i was like 18 or 20 and all 145 pounds of huck and muscle man you'd have thought i was something not 265 pounds of fat today we praise them for athletic abilities he can run fast well that won't last long now will it why don't we put you out there see how fast you run daddy i think it was so funny deacon chuck used to play volleyball at the church picnics but you know now he just watches because he's almost robert's age because we don't stay there so what do i praise character and hard work you get what you praise you get what you look for you get what you expect and what ends up happening if you're not careful is everybody wants to go get a facial job done i got to get face lifts and muscle biggers and pills and shots and steroids for all the dumb stuff when they ought to been praised because they love jesus who cares if he can catch a football who cares what i want to praise is they love jesus absalom ends up with a major pride problem i don't know what goes on in the story but i just want you to think about it if you were dealing with this and you look at this story and you say now how in the world did a guy like david end up with a son like absalom how in the world does david end up with one of his own kids that wants to take over his kingdom takes his wives up on the roof of the palace and and and and and and takes advantage of them and and tries to kill david and run david out of the how'd that happen maybe because sin wasn't dealt with maybe because he didn't keep the communication lines open maybe because the time of when he did do some discipline it was just simply i won't talk to you maybe because as he grew up it absolutely knew how good looking he was he even had some hair was so good he sold it once a year everybody just wanted to buy his hair can you imagine that pride is the
[32:27] root of all sin because it's thinking about me myself and i you know when i sin can i just tell you every one of our sins comes down to one thing me me don't hurt my feelings don't say that about me i need that car i need that house i want this stuff i want tamar she's beautiful and i'm the king's son i should get to have her i want him dead so i think i'll just kill him i like basheba it's a me thing praising the wrong stuff let me give you the last one second samuel 13 39 express what you feel tell him you love him now i grew up in a home my dad was an orphan by the time he was uh six years old so he never knew love never knew how to say he loved and he didn't really say he loved me until i'd said it so many times he finally started saying it when he was really old but he did love he just didn't know how to say he loved in second samuel 13 39 the bible said the soul of king david longed to go forth unto absalom for he was comforted concerning amnon seeing he was dead you don't need to wait to their funeral to love them it's not sissy to say you love someone when chris our kid was born i i wanted so desperately to tell him i loved him because i didn't have that when i was a kid i spent the night at somebody's house when i was uh i don't know eight ten and we we went to the she told us it's time to go to bed we went to the bedroom and we climbed in the bed and that lady came in and she pulled her son's sheet up and blanket up and kind of tucked him in the bed and kissed him on the forehead and told him she loved him and then she came over to me pull the sheet up pull the blanket up and kissed me on the floor i'm like lord help me i ain't never had nothing like that in my life i could not believe it i was like i want to spend night here all the time this is a sweet place to be and uh so when chris was born i knew i wanted to say i love you i love you and so i loved him and i kissed him and i hugged him then he started getting big you know he's like five years old and he's like well he's a little bit big feels kind of weird but now he's like massive big you know but if we don't say i love we can't wait till this i don't want absolutely kicking me out it's worse to keep waiting for something to happen without saying what you feel you know you really you're i even had people in my church say i'm asking god to deal with my child about this and her kid was living at their house and what they needed was a good switch they needed a good beating lord help me that's what they needed just a good old-fashioned woodshed trip say amen i know y'all don't believe in that but maybe it would have stopped amnon maybe it would have stopped absalom maybe david wouldn't be running for his life maybe absalom wouldn't be hanging by his hair and stabbed through the heart with three darts by old joab the longer you wait the more they imagine the worst can you not imagine what old absalom's thinking absalom's thinking daddy didn't love tamar daddy has favorites in this family daddy likes amnon more he likes me he likes amnon more he likes tamar you say i don't that's not the bob i know i just know what i'd think daddy's not ever going to do anything daddy don't do right anymore and he got bad so much of the foolishness that your children are doing might just be to get your attention so i finish with this learn to say the words i love you forgive me and i forgive you god has let betty and me have a fairly good relationship with our children till today and i pray to god i get to have it but you know i've had to say i'm sorry a whole bunch to my kids they have seen my temper they have seen me angry with their mother they've seen me have bad attitudes
[36:30] and i've had to say i have sinned and i am sorry as a pastor i have to be able to say that i have to say you know i messed up because if you're too big to say you're sorry and you're wrong you're probably too big forgive me it wouldn't hurt to be honest with your kid and say you know this is something your dad messed up in and god taught your dad my daddy used to say you're not going to live alone to make all the mistakes won't you learn from somebody else's maybe we ought to learn so learn to say the words i love you forgive me and i forgive you i don't know what happened with absalom i know what ends up happening i know absalom is dead now and i know david is broken hearted i know he's mad at joab because he got killed and i know david's like the poor puppet in this whole deal it just got mistreated but i really think have we gone back david could have kept absalom from being who he was there's a good chance so i look at that and i say austin what can you do with your kids with your grandkids with people you work with would you at least consider that you