Bitterness

A pastor friend mentioned some folks who left his church, unhappy because the church used animated Bible stories with their youth. They complained that those videos distorted the Bible and made light of Scripture. The couple finally left the church. But the church they began attending used the same videos, even more frequently than the first.

Why did this couple rant and rave about videos in one church and turn a blind eye to the same videos in another? Because their faultfinding was insincere, trumped up—and not really about the videos themselves. That was merely the pretext.

We are born with a propensity to lie to ourselves and to others. Dostoyevsky wrote, “Lying to ourselves is more deeply ingrained than lying to others.” I agree. I witness this in myself, and I see it in others. Our personal pride masks this “lying to self” propensity. Jeremiah 17:9 puts it this way (ESV): “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it?”

Following David’s awful sin of adultery with Bathsheba and the ensuing arranged murder of her husband, Uriah, he was confronted by Nathan the prophet. Among the consequences of his sins were that from his own household enemies would arise against him (2 Sam 12:10-11). Three of his sons—Amnon, Absalom, and Adonijah—each caused serious problems for him and his successor, Solomon (2 Sam 13; 14-17; 2 Kings 1-2). There was another person, whose name also began with an “A,” who rose up against him as a betrayer. This man, Ahithophel, had been a close advisor to David and could even have been called “the smartest man in the world.”

Now in those days the counsel that Ahithophel gave was as if one consulted the word of God; so was all the counsel of Ahithophel esteemed, both by David and by Absalom” (2 Sam 16:23).

He evidently came out of his own retirement and joined the revolt of Absalom as his trusted advisor (2 Sam 16:23).

What is often overlooked, however, is that Ahithophel evidently became part of David’s family by marriage. Two passages explain that Ahithophel was the grandfather of Bathsheba (cf. 2 Sam 11:3 with 23:34). One need not speculate too much to see that when David “took” Bathsheba (2 Sam 11:4), Ahithophel must have left David’s service. Later, the crafty Absalom must have assumed (correctly) that Ahithophel would jump at the opportunity to get revenge against David so he asked him to come out of retirement—an offer that the old man simply could not refuse.