Psalm 89:1-18; 2 Samuel 13:23-39; Acts 20:17-38; Mark 9:42-50
Absalom, after waiting two years for the right timing, gets his revenge against Amnon. Again, the plot sounds a bit like David’s own plot concerning Uriah. Absalom manipulates his father into the plan to ensure that Amnon is where he needs to be in order to be killed. Once there, Absalom has his men kill his brother so that his hands are clean, just as his father had used Joab. Deception is a learned skill and Absalom has learned it well. He knows that his father will not quickly forgive and forget so he leaves the area. David, just as with his first child with Bathsheba, is comforted concerning Amnon “since he was dead.” David understood that he couldn’t afford to dwell on death but needed to be concerned with life.
If we actually followed Jesus’ words here to the letter what would we look like? We would truly be a rag-tag army that wasn’t much good for anything, much less battle. We need Him to redeem all of us, every part. All that we have and all that we are can be used for honorable or dishonorable purposes. What we need to do is to offer our hands, feet, eyes, lips, etc. Without Jesus, we have no hope and the reality is that we need the Holy Spirit or we will need to do as He says in this passage. He offers redemption for our sins, He offers His Spirit to rule and guide us, to enable us to use all that we are for His service. He has taken all these into Himself and redeemed them through His death. We have a choice of whether to live by His Spirit or, like Amnon, to use our gifts for sinful purposes.
Paul takes his leave of the mission field of Ephesus to return to Jerusalem for Pentecost. He knows that imprisonment and afflictions await and yet he presses on to what he believes is a divine appointment. He has suffered for his obedience to the heavenly call because of the plots of those of the Jews who despise the church and yet he has never shrunk from his duty to the Lord. Death is not his great fear, rather his only fear is that he fail to obey and please the Lord. Here, he says he is innocent of anyone’s blood because he has faithfully preached the Gospel. In this statement, Paul is likening his commission to Ezekiel’s (see Ezekiel 3.16-21). Do we consider our commission regarding the Gospel as seriously as Paul did? Paul believed he had been entrusted with the best news the world has ever known or will ever know and that he had a duty or a trust with respect to the grace he was given and that trust was to share it always. He wasn’t responsible for the response of those who heard him, he was only responsible to be an evangelist. We too are called to be evangelists that no one we meet could say they never heard the Gospel.
To Him shall endless prayer be made,
And praises throng to crown His head;
His Name like sweet perfume shall rise
With every morning sacrifice.
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