01 When Suffering Isn’t Your Fault: The Story of Tamar (2 Samuel 13)

Krisan Marotta: Welcome to the Wednesday in the Word podcast. I'm Krisan Marotta. We'll be looking at 2 Samuel 13 today, which is the first talk in a series of seven on the rebellion of Absalom. You can find links and lecture notes related to today's talk on our website at wednesdayintheword.com slash Absalom1. Thank you so much for listening. Well, welcome. We are in 2 Samuel 13 today, chapter 13. And if I told you, okay, we're gonna, I'm gonna tell you the story of a princess, you would all expect that the story of the princess would end, and they lived happily ever after. Well, we have a story of a princess today, and the ending is she lived a desolate woman in her brother's house. So that raises all kinds of questions of this is not the way a princess's life is supposed to turn out, especially one who believes in God and is faithful, and so why did this happen to her? So that's the the pretty thorny question we're gonna try to unravel today. Chapter 13 begins now, Absalom, and Absalom is going to be the key player over the next six weeks because his actions are gonna bring about the fulfillment of God's judgment against David that we talked about last week in chapter 12. And so this chapter begins kind of a six-part or six-chapter story of what of his reactions, and his story is a tragedy. Many people in David's household, including David himself, are going to suffer. And today we meet Absalom's sister Tamar, who I think of all the characters we're going to meet over the next six weeks, she's probably the most tragic. Because she's young, she's beautiful, she's a princess, she's the daughter of the most powerful king of the day. She's educated, she knows how to work. We see her as articulate and wise, so you look at that and you go, Well, she has everything. She, her prospects for wealth and prosperity and happiness are great, and yet her life is ruined through no fault of her own. Um, one in one afternoon she loses it all. So the question this chapter raises is why? I mean, we understand, okay, David sinned. Sin always has consequences, and we expect to kind of see those consequences, but why do those consequences hit Tamar and hit her so uh devastatingly? That's the question I think. I don't know how you can come to this chapter without ask answering. So you'll notice as we go through this story that the sins are gonna magnify. So each time we'll see David's sin repeated but pushed a little farther, like more over the line, more heinous. So just as David took Bathsheba, we're gonna see Amnon take his sister. So the first offense was kind of a spontaneous, uh, lustful adultery, but now we're gonna move to premeditated rape. And if the first crime was against the wife of a friend, now we're going to see the a crime against a sister. And if the consequences of David's crime were the death of a husband and the death of the baby that resulted, and now the consequences of this crime are gonna lead to civil war. So in each case, you we're gonna see the crime is magnified, is worsened, and the consequences are more severe. And for David, we look at that and we say, okay, we understand Nathan's prophecy of judgment in chapter 12, verses 10 to 12. He says, the sword will never leave your house, and as Libby taught us last week, David was given the kingship, he was given God's protection, he was given these great blessings, and then he took what was not his to take. And even though God forgave him and showed mercy to him, there are still consequences. But why do those consequences fall on Tamar? She is a seemingly innocent bystander. She had no choice. She didn't ask to be a princess, she didn't ask to be beautiful, she didn't get to choose who her parents were or her siblings, and if that's not enough to raise our questions, when we see her throughout the text, she is presented as right and blameless, and yet she loses everything. So we see her in verses 5 through 11 trapped, we see her ignored in 14 and 16, she's raped in verse 14, despised in verse 15, banished in verse 17, and then ruined in 18 through 20. And so the question we're gonna try to answer is why? Why did she have to suffer so much? We'll see if I can answer it. I'm excited actually, because I I spent so much time on this, I can't wait to tell you everything. Alright, so we're gonna start by reviewing the story, make sure you're familiar with the basic plot, and then I'm gonna go through the characters in the story and kind of say what do we learn from each of the characters, and then from that try to put it all together. So I'm not gonna go plot point by plot point through the story, but kind of look, I'm expecting you're familiar with this, and then we'll try to put it all together from that big picture. Okay, so the first thing I want you to notice is that there's a key verb in this chapter, it's the verb lie with, and it appears five times in the story. It's in verse 5, verse 6, verse 8, verse 11, and verse 14. And it's um it reflects the kind of selfishness and self-indulgence, which I think is the heart at the heart of the sin in this chapter. It's the idea that you take what is not yours to take, regardless of the cost to others. It's the same problem that defeated David with Bathsheba, and now it's going to uh defeat his oldest son and heir to the throne. So the story begins in 13.1 and 2. Now Absalom, David's son, had a beautiful sister whose name was Tamar. And after a time, Amnon, David's son, loved her. And Amnon was so tormented that he made himself ill because of his sister Tamar, for she was a virgin, and it seemed impossible to Amnon to do anything to her. So here are characters. Absalom, whose name means peace, ironically enough, is the son of Makkah, who is David's third wife, and he is her oldest son. He's the third son, and his mother is the daughter of the king of Gesher. Amnon is David's firstborn son. His name ironically means faithfulness. And he is the son of Ahanoam, who was the Jezrelite as David's first wife. Now, you may remember that Abigail also had a son, and she was the second wife, so there was a son in between these two whose name is Tiliab, but he's also called Daniel. And most people think by this point he has passed away, so that he did not survive into adulthood, because he drops out of the story, and they refer to these two as kind of rival heirs to the throne. So Amnon's the oldest, and Absalom is the third son, but he's the next in line at this point. And so it tells us that Amnon is lovesick for his half-sister Tamar, and the word translated tormented in verse 2 is kind of has the idea of to being bound up beyond measure, is a literal translation. We might use the phrase today, he was tied up in knots, you know, that kind of wrestling, fitful, just consumed by lust for his sister, and that's where the story ought to end. Unfortunately, with the help of his cousin Jonadab, he feigns illness, persuades his father to send Tamar to him to nurse him alone back to health, where he traps her alone in his bedroom and then forces himself upon her. And in verses 11 and 12, we see there's, I don't know, in I think it's four Hebrew words right back to back that you should never see together. You'll notice it's come lie with me, my sister, and then no my brother. It's like, okay, lie with me and my sister should never appear in the same sentence. And if that's not enough, right next to it you have no my brother. So as if to emphasize the the horrible nature of this crime. So rape was forbidden, obviously, and this rape is also incest, which was also forbidden in covenant law. You can find that in Leviticus 18, Leviticus 20, and Deuteronomy 27 all have contained passages which forbid incest. And then, as if that's not enough, magnifying the sin. After violating her, Amnon throws her away. But Tamar doesn't go quietly. She leaves the house in mourning and crying aloud the wrong that was done to her, and her brother Absalom is rightly enraged and begins this plot that will lead to civil war. So that's kind of the overview of the story. Now I want to look at the characters. We're going to start with Tamar, and then we're going to look at each of the four men in the story. So with Tamar, I want you to notice how different she is portrayed than Bathsheba is portrayed. She is named immediately. We start in verse one with uh Absalom had a sister, Tamar. Bathsheba is referred primarily as uh referred to as the woman or as Uriah's wife. And she is almost only incidentally given her first name in the text. Where Tamar is named immediately. She is identified as Absalom's sister, and you see Amnon referred to her as my sister, but that seems to be a covering for his evil intentions. You know, if he kind of publicly refers to her as his sister, then surely no one will suspect what he's got in mind. So she's given a name while Bathsheba is referred to it more often as Uriah's wife or the woman. In addition, we're told that Tamar physically resists Amnon's advances, and she attempts to reason with him to get out of this situation. As far as we know, Bathsheba was complicit or compliant when David brought her to the palace. She may have been reluctant, but we're not told that she tried to resist in any way. In fact, the only words we hear from Bathsheba are, I'm pregnant. Whereas Tamar is articulate, she's given two rather lengthy speeches, and she's right in her speeches. In verses 12 through 13, she pleads with Amnon to stop, and she uses four arguments, all of which are valid. She says, look, the action is wrong. If that's not enough, the action is unwise. It's going to cost us both an enormous, well, it will have enormous consequences. And then finally she says, there is an alternative. You can ask the king to marry me. Now, marriage with a half-sister was legal in Israel, but I can't imagine she would have been enthralled by that prospect. So I'm wondering if she would have gone through with it, or maybe this was an attempt to buy time, you know, to get out of the situation. But anyway, her arguments are persuasive or failed to persuade Amnon, but they are correct, both arguments from the law and from their circumstances. The action's wrong, it's unwise, the cost is enormous, and there is an alternative. When Amnon refuses to listen and then forces himself on her, he after the deed is done, he orders her out and she speaks again, again rightfully arguing that sending her away only compounds the crime and is heaping evil on top of evil. So we see this articulate, eloquent, faithful woman versus the only words we hear from Bathsheba are I'm pregnant. Bathsheba aids in David's cover-up. At least she doesn't announce it. She goes quietly back to her house and only contacts him when she learns she's pregnant. Tamar, on the other hand, does not go quietly. In 1319, it says she puts ashes on her head. She put ashes on her head and tore her long robe that she wore, and she laid her hand on her head and went away, crying aloud as she went. So she immediately goes into public mourning, which is a way to proclaim she has been wronged. She names sin for what it is, and she refuses to ignore it, even though the consequences are going to be severe for her as well as for Amnon. So in every way the text presents her as a woman wronged. She trusted the men in her family to treat her with respect and dignity. She didn't bring this on herself. She was not complicit. We see her react with wisdom, standing on the law, standing on what she knows is right, and yet she is devastated by it all. So notice that I think part of the contrast between Bathsheba is the narrator wants us to feel this is a woman wronged. This should not have happened to her. She was innocent in this matter, so, and we ought to feel her pain. So we're going to ask why. Now let's look at the men in the story. And I'm taking this from Dale Ralph Davis' commentary. He points out that each of the four male characters wrong her. And we're going to look at them in turn. The first one, of course, is Amnon, her half-brother, and he is passion without love. So he is passion without love. He wants her because she's beautiful, but he does not love her. The text says he's tormented by his desire for her. And in verse 2, when she's described as a virgin, the word used there carries the idea that she is of marriageable age. So she is old enough to be married. And he's attracted, but notice he's not attracted by her wisdom, her character, her work ethic. And did you notice, even though she's a princess, she can work, she bakes and cooks. So she has this work ethic. He's not attracted to any of that. She's beautiful and he wants her. Now, some commentators argue that he was trying he seduced her to strengthen his claim to the throne, because if he had her as his wife, it would enhance his claim to the throne to be the next in line. That doesn't persuade me because if that's really what he was after, he wouldn't have thrown her away afterwards. He would have wanted to hold on to her, or at least to take her in a legitimate means, so that when she said, Look, ask our father for my hand in marriage, he would have said, Ooh, good way to get the throne. But he doesn't seem to want that, so that doesn't persuade me. I think this is just lust. And the cruelty he exhibits in verse 15 and 16, after raping her, he utters two words. They're basically get up and get out. Which, I mean, you can imagine the cruelty of that. And then he bars the door after her. I mean, that is there's no love in there, there's no desire for intimacy, there's no relationship, this is passion without love. And nothing can be farther than the biblical view of sexual intimacy and romance. Okay, so Amnon is passion without love, and he wrongs her that way. Jonadab is wisdom without principle. So he's described in verse 3 when we meet him as a very wise or crafty man. He is the son of David's brother, Shamah, who's also known as Shemiah. So he would have been Absalom's cousin, and who's probably, given the age difference in the brothers, was probably much older than both Amnon and Absalom. So he's presented as wise and crafty, but instead of using his wisdom for good, he uses it for deceit. So, unlike David, he sees what's going on and figures, asks Amnon, hmm, what's going on? Why are you tormented? And then he devises this plan to get Tamar alone. Now he could have used his wisdom to reason with Annon, to persuade him you need to remove yourself from this temptation or seek an honorable marriage or some righteous or godly outcome, but instead he uses his wisdom to plot the crime. So again, he wrongs her. So if Amnon is lust without love, Jonadamb is wisdom without principle. And then we get to David, and he is anger without justice. Notice 1321. When King David heard all these things, he was very angry. Great, what does he do? What does he say? Nothing. That's the striking contrast of this story. After the fact, he must have realized that Amnon had used him to seduce his sister, just as he had used servants to bring Bathsheba to him, and he used Uriah to carry his own death message to Joab. He must have heard how Amnon abused Tamar and then disposed of her, just like he sent Bathsheba back home. And now Absalom is seething with rage. Tamar is publicly mourning, her life is ruined, and David's anger is perfectly justified, but his silence is not. He is the only one who can bring justice. He is both father and king. It is his place, and if he doesn't act, no one else can act. And we're not told that he did anything, not even a speech. I mean, Ammon should have been punished. Rape was punishable by death in Israel. So he could have justifiably been put to death, or he could have been held accountable, forced to marry Tamar, pay a double bride price, something that would have exonerated her. And instead he does nothing. And if he fails to act, no one else can. So it's kind of reminiscent for those of you who are here with us in 1 Samuel of Eli, when Eli failed to discipline his wayward sons back in 1 Samuel chapter 2. Now we see David as father failing to discipline his sons. And that gives Tamar no relief, and it hands Absalom this plausible excuse for revenge. So we have Amnon is passion without love, Jonadab is wisdom without principle, David is anger without justice, and then there's Absalom, and he is hatred without restraint. So notice in 20, 21, and 22 we see David's lack of response sandwiched between Absalom's hatred. In 20 it says, And her brother Absalom said to her, Has Amnon your brother been with you? Now hold your peace, my sister. He is your brother, do not take this to heart. So Tamar lived a desolate woman in her brother Absalom's house. When King David heard of all these things, he was very angry. But Absalom spoke to Amnon, neither good nor bad, for Absalom hated Amnon because he had violated his sister. So we see Absalom's speech and Absalom's hatred back to back with David's lack of response in between. And I think that's what the text is trying to highlight for us. David did nothing. And the speech he uses where he says, Hold your peace, do not take this to heart, is reminiscent of David's speech when he heard that Uriah was dead, and he says, Well, don't let this be evil in your eyes. It's kind of overlooked this. Think about what the family gatherings must have been like at this point in time. Because you have Amnon not speaking to to, or Absalom not speaking to Amnon, and how could David have seen his daughter's beautiful face for two years without coming to her defense? You know, and what kind of relationship did he have with Amnon? How did they sit around the table at family gatherings? You know, I just I wonder that. You know, what did he have Amnon at his right hand during feasts and celebrations? Did he still treat him as the heir apparent? You know, did he we just don't know. But think about what it must have been like in the palace with Absalom seething with rage, not speaking to his brother. You know, how did he act with each other in public? I don't know. But it must have been a really bad two years. So that's in 1323. Absalom waits two years for his father to act. And when he does nothing, Absalom decides to take matters into his own hands. So now we're seeing the sin is going one step further. Amnon's actions resulted from uncontrolled lust. Now we're going to see Absalom with premeditated, methodically plotted murder. So he has two years to plot this out. So he invites his father to the sheep shearing festival, which was a time of great festivity in Israel, and he asked David and his whole court to come, which he must have known would have been too great a burden. It is it is too big a thing to send the entire court to a festival. And I think he is calculating that request to get David to decline so that he can then ask for his real objective, which is, well, can you send Amnon in your place? So David ought to have found that request odd because Absalom isn't speaking to Amnon. So you'd think this might have sent off alarm bells for him. And maybe that's what lies behind his question in verse 26, where he says, Well, why should he go with you? Maybe there is some hint of suspicion there. Absalom continues to press David until David says, Okay, Amnon can go, but I'm sending all my sons, which I think may have been cover, figuring, well, Absalom surely won't take any action against Amnon if all of their other brothers are there. So maybe David was suspicious, we're not really sure. But at least he sends Amnon and all his brothers. And now Absalom's had two years to plot this out, and he knows, well, I myself can't get close enough to Amnon to kill him, so he instructs his servants to wait until everyone is drunk with wine and then kill Amnon. So in one thrust of the knife, he avenges his sister and clears the path to the throne for himself. Because with Amnon dead, he would be the next in line. So now we're down in 1329. So the servants of Absalom did to Amnon as Absalom had commanded. Then all the king's son arose, and each mounted his mule and fled. And while they were on their way, news came to David Absalom has struck down all the king's sons, and not one of them is left. Then the king arose and tore his garments and lay on the earth, and all his servants who were standing by tore their garments. Imagine the terror of verse thirty. All his sons save Absalom are dead. Can you imagine what that must be like as a parent? And then, not only that, as a king, because it raises the question who will be the next king? And this is David, who's been promised that his kingship would endure forever. So it throws into question the whole Davidic covenant. Has God abandoned me? Has God revoked the Davidic covenant because of his sin? Has he abandoned his chosen king? Is it all over? Can you imagine the terror of that? I mean, this is a not only a personal tragedy for David, but it's a national tragedy for the because it's throwing the Davidic kingship in question. So it's similar to the capture of the ark in 1 Samuel 4. This is a disaster. And yet, there's Jonadab to set the record straight. He says in verse 32, no, no, not all your sons are dead, only Amnon. Ha! Consolation. Absalom has killed him to avenge his sister. And the narrator leaves us wondering how did Jonadab know these details? There are two possibilities. Either he switched sides politically, and he abandoned Amnon and threw his lot in with Absalom so that he was complicit in this plot and knew about it in advance. Or maybe he was just clear-headed enough so that when the messenger arrived, everyone went into panic and confusion, and you know how the news gets magnified and grows worse. And he said, wait, wait, let me go back to the messenger and find out what really happened. So maybe he just remained clear-headed enough to keep uh to set the record straight, or maybe he was complicit. We don't know. So after executing his revenge, Absalom flees to Gesher, which is his mother's family. So, and he lives in the palace there with the king of Gesher in exile for three years. So look at 37, 38, and 39. Absalom fled and went to Talmai the son of Ah, I can't pronounce these names, Amahud, king of Gesher, who would have been his grandfather. And David mourned for his son day after day. So Absalom fled and went to Gesher and was there three years. And the spirit of the king longed to go out to Absalom because he was comforted about Amnon because he was dead. So verse 37 and verse 39 are ambiguous. So I want to talk about this. When it says David mourned for his son day after day, the question is, which son? And the text doesn't, there's no grammatical clue. Is this Amnon or is this Absalom? It's we don't know if it's the one who died or the one who fled. And then verse 39 is also ambiguous. The spirit of the king longed to go out to Absalom. The question is, in a positive way or in a negative way. And most English translates it, English translations render that David longed to go out to Absalom in reconciliation, for he was comforted in concerning Amnon, since Amnon was dead. The idea he could do nothing to change that. However, there's a large number of commentators, and these are the ones I agree with, Bruce Bruce Walkie's one of them, that says, no, it's better translated, Absalom longed to go out to Absalom in a military operation. He longed to go after him in war, for he was grieved concerning Amnon because he was dead. I think that makes much more sense as the story unfolds, that David is so enraged with Absalom that he wants to hunt him down and take revenge. It explains in the next chapter, we're going to look at next week in 14.1 why Joab acts, because Joab was the military general, and he says, look, if David goes to war against Absalom, it's really going to war against Gesher, and we don't want another national war. So he is, he acts to bring Absalom back. And it also explains why when Absalom does come back, David refuses to see him for two more years. I mean, if he longed to go out in reconciliation, when he does come home, why does he refuse to see him for two more years and then only see him under pressure? So I think it makes much more sense to think of this as David is angry and there is no reconciliation here. Alright, so that's the story, and that brings us back to Tamar and the question I raised at the beginning. This is primarily David's story. We understand that this is part of the judgment that falls on his household because of his sin with Bathsheba that Nathan predicted in chapter 12. We've seen the four men in Tamar's life fail her, and she suffers through no fault of our own. And the question we have to ask is why? Why does Tamar suffer for David's sin? And why does she suffer so such devastating consequences? And where is God when all this is happening? So that's pretty tall order, but we're going to try to unravel it. I think the short answer is God is present and He's fulfilling His word. So where is God when all this is happening? He is fulfilling His Word. We know that sin always has consequences. And it those consequences can be far-reaching. I mean, think about adultery today. It's not just the injured spouse that is harmed. The children are harmed. It disrupts the extended family, it can break up friendships, it can ruin workplace and the job. I mean, it's like, as we talked about last week, I think the sin, you throw a rock into a pond and the consequences ripple outward like uh ripples on the water. The consequences of sin have can be far-reaching and spread far beyond our imaginings. As we will see, the rape of Tamar is going to lead to civil war. Now, ultimately, the consequences of our sin are meant to drive us back to God. I mean, when we experience those consequences, I think part of what we're supposed to learn is to go back to our Heavenly Father, throw ourselves on His mercy and His grace, and ask for forgiveness and for Him to redeem the situation. He is the only one who can. And hopefully, Tamar's sorrow did that for her, drove her back to her Heavenly Father, who was the only one who could heal all those wrongs. So, I guess the short answer is God is fulfilling his word, and sin always has consequences. The second thing, though, I think that helps us unravel it is that even though Tamar is innocent of this crime, she is still a sinner in need of salvation. And I think part of the problem this is hard for us is because grace no longer amazes us. You know, we've grown used to it. We take it for granted. When God executes judgment, then we're shocked. But judgment ought to be the default. Grace ought to be the amazing thing. Now, uh if you have your Bibles, turn to Luke 13, because Jesus answers a very similar question to this. I'll bet this is a passage you've probably never heard taught. It's one of the hardest sayings of Jesus. This is Luke 13, verses 1 through 5. It says, There were some present at that very time who told him about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices. So these people come to Jesus and they say, okay, here were these innocent Galileans minding their own business, and Pilate martyred them and mingled their blood with his sacrifices, and how could that happen? And they come to Jesus basically asking that question, how can these innocent people suffer? So we could see the parallels. How, why would Tamar, an innocent bystander, so devastated in this tragedy? Look at Jesus' response, 13.2. And he answered them, Do you think that these Galileans were worse sinners than all other Galileans because they suffered this way? No, I tell you, but unless you repent, you will all likewise perish. Or those eighteen on whom the Tower of Siloam fell and killed them, do you think that they were worse offenders than all those who lived in Jerusalem? No, I tell you, unless you repent, you will all likewise perish. That's kind of a shocking response, isn't it? I mean, they come to him and they say, How can these innocent people suffer? Like we might say, how can you allow Tamar to be raped? And how could you allow these Galileans to be martyred and then or the these people on whom the tower fell? So here you have 18 people, they're walking down the street minding their own business, and a tower falls on them and kills them. I mean, the analogy today might be a car accident. I mean, they're just in the wrong place at the wrong time, and it has fatal consequences. And the people are coming to Jesus and saying, How can that happen? And notice how Jesus responds. He doesn't say, Oh, I'm sorry to hear about the tragedy, you know, keep a stip up her lip, these things happen. He doesn't apologize for God. He doesn't offer any excuses. Instead, he rebukes them. He says, You're asking the wrong question. And notice his answer is given twice. Verse 3 and verse 5. No, I tell you, unless you repent, you will all likewise perish. And then again, no, I tell you, unless you repent, you will all likewise perish. I think what he's saying is, you're asking the wrong question. The question is not, why did the tower fall on those people's head? The question is, why didn't it fall on me? I am just as guilty. They are all guilty. We all deserve judgment. And when judgment comes, that ought not to surprise us. So from his perspective, it's not that they were poor, innocent people, it's that we are all sinners, and if we don't repent, we will all perish. It's kind of a hard saying, but R. C. Sprawl explains it this way. This is from his book, The Holiness of God. He says, We're not really surprised that God has redeemed us. Somewhere deep inside, in the secret chambers of our heart, we harbor the notion that God owes us his mercy. Heaven would not be quite the same if we were excluded from it. We know that we are sinners, but we are surely not as bad as all that. There are enough redeeming features to our personalities that if God is really just, he would include us in his salvation. What amazes us is justice, not grace. Then he goes on, though people may mistreat me, God never does. That God allows a human being to treat me unjustly is just of God. While I may complain to God about human horizontal injustice I have suffered, I cannot rise up and accuse God of committing vertical injustice by allowing the human injustice to fall me. Follow me through that. God would be perfectly just to allow me to be thrown in prison for a crime I did not commit. I may be innocent before other people, but I am guilty before God. It is impossible for anyone anywhere, anytime to deserve grace. Grace by definition is undeserved. So that I think is the key point. It's impossible for anyone anywhere, anytime to deserve grace. Grace by definition is undeserved. So what he's saying is we are all guilty before God. We may not have provoked this particular sin or this particular crime against us, but we are still sinners. And if bad things happen to us, it's because we're sinners and everyone around us is sinners and we live in a broken world. So by saying Tamar was treated unjustly by the men in her life, we are not in any way accusing God of injustice or neglect. That's kind of the main point. That none of us deserve the blessings he gives us, either in this world or the next. So vertically, he is still just. We may experience horizontal injustice. Okay, so that's kind of the theological jumping-off place. God is there, he's fulfilling his words, and he is not in any way unjust when unjust things happen to us. So that hasn't really answered all the questions, has it? We still kind of want to know: well, what are we to do when suffering comes our way? Particularly suffering we didn't provoke. So I'm going to try to tackle that in our remaining minutes. First, the Bible teaches us suffering's going to happen. We will face tragedies, we will face pain, we will face injustice. It repeatedly, over and over, the Bible says suffering is the norm. But that suffering is not in vain. So you'll notice there are many metaphors in the Bible, particularly in the New Testament, that talk about this. The gardener prunes a vine so that it will grow. So he cuts it down to the quick. And that's painful, but it produces fruit. You'll see the metaphor of the good physician confronts disease, or wise parents discipline their children, or gold is purified in the fiery furnace. All those metaphors say, yes, suffering happens, it comes our way, and there is a point. There is something good that comes out of it. So suffering in a broken, sinful world is normal. It ought not to surprise us. And it does not mean that God is in any way unjust or has abandoned us. So that's kind of the first point to remember. The second is that to remember that the goal of this life is not to have an easy life, it's to have a mature faith. So we me we think that if we cry out to God to change our circumstances, you know, that's what's needed. If we pray, then he's going to remove the trial, he'll give me more money, he'll give me a better job, he'll fix all the problems with my spouse, he'll bring back my prodigal child, he'll restore health or heal a friendship or get rid of church politics or whatever it is, whatever the stress is. We think God needs to change that. But, okay, if you hear nothing else today, hear this. This is the most important point, I think, out of this lesson. It would be unloving of God to change our circumstances without changing us. And God cannot do what is best for us unless He changes us, not our circumstances. Can you follow me through that? Because we're the sinners. We're the one the problem in us and in the world is that we are sinful. And to change the circumstances around us without changing the condition of our heart is not the most loving thing he can do for us. So removing the external problem, leaving us in our brokenness, in our sin, would be an unloving thing for God to do. And as parents, you know that there are times you must discipline your children to teach them ultimately what's best for us. If you just remove the temptation or remove the problem without teaching them to change their heart, you've you have not done what's best for them. So God is in the process of giving us something better than an easy life. He's giving us unshakable faith. And the goal is to teach us to trust him no matter what. To come become the people who believe and wait on his word. And the Bible over and over again says faith grows when it's stretched, when it's tested, when it's put under pressure. And ultimately, if you have a mature strong faith, that is better than an easy life. So suffering is normal. There is a point to it, it gives us faith, a mature, strong faith, and that is a goal worth having. Okay, just a couple more thoughts, and then I'm going to wrap this up. The third thing I'd say about that is suffering in the mid or uh trusting God in the midst of your suffering is not the same thing as being tough. I think that's a mistake today. It's suffering in the midst of your circumstance, in your trial is not the same thing as being tough. So we talk about trusting God in the middle. Trusting God, yes. Trusting God in your circumstances. Thank you. I can speak. So, you know, we have all these sayings when the going gets tough, the tough gets going, and what doesn't kill me will make me stronger. And that that might be good for, you know, armies and orchestras and soccer teams, but but God is not testing our courage, he's testing our faith. And faith is tested when you go through all those doubts of does God still love me? Does he is he a God who keeps his promises? Um, have I done something that has finally spurred his anger? All those doubts and struggles, that's that is um what's being tested, and you may not feel good about that. You may not keep a stip upper lip upper lip, it hurts. So that kind of suffering is what stretches our faith. Trials force us to ask those questions. And if you think, well, I'm not trusting God because I'm doubting, well, doubting is part of the struggle. And when you're still clinging to Him and turning to Him in the midst of those doubts, I would say you're still trusting Him. So trusting God is not the same thing as being tough. And the next one is that suffering is not always understandable. Sometimes it makes sense to us and sometimes it doesn't. I mean, we kind of understand that when we are persecuted for our faith, though, so we look different than the rest of the people in our workplace or in our classroom, and we stand up for what's right and people ridicule for ridicule us for it, we kind of think, okay, that makes sense. We see Christ had that, we see the apostles, we see many people throughout history were ridiculed for their faith. That makes sense. And we also kind of understand that when we make stupid choices, they have stup they have big consequences, you know. So a compulsive gambler may resent his poverty, but you wouldn't say, well, it's unfair that you gambled away your money and now you're living in poverty. Or an alcoholic may justly lose his job because he can't show up on time and prepared, and we say, well, that that one thing follows another, that makes sense. But sometimes suffering does not make sense. It seems like a random blow, and that's what I think we see with Tamar. So it's the natural disasters, you know, the earthquakes or the tidal waves or the car wrecks or or just maybe on a personal level a lasting illness. Or maybe it's just, you know, that you have this critical job interview and you get stuck in traffic. You know, it's those, it just seems random, and you think, why me? Why now? Sometimes suffering is like that. And part of faith is saying, God knows what he's doing, and he does not have to explain himself to me. Whether it's a big disaster or a small-scale disaster, it's trusting him in the midst of it. Okay, and the last thing then is happiness is not required. I think we see Timar in deep mourning. The last word we hear from her is that she lived a desolate woman in her brother's house. She put ashes on her head, she tears her robe, she she goes through the palace crying, she's weeping in desolation. And I think we do each other a disservice to say that as a Christian, when you suffer, you have to pretend to be happy about it. You know, and paste that fake smile on your face and show up at church. That's not required. Um James does say, consider it joy when you encounter trials, but joy and happiness are not the same thing. Uh and we can recognize that suffering has a purpose, and that purpose is worthwhile as because it um it is for our good and it makes us more Christ-like, but we don't have to paste a fake smile on our face. We don't have to show up and say, it doesn't hurt when it does hurt, or we don't have to act like we're not confused when we are confused, or when we're, you know, there's chaos around us and we're overwhelmed by it. It's okay to feel that way. That's part of what I meant too by saying it's not the same thing as being tough. Happiness is not necessarily required. So trials lead to perseverance. Perseverance is not the final destination, though. God intends us to have more than a thick skin, He intends us to have maturity, faith, Christ-like character. And we gain that when we go through those trials and learn to say, when I'm weak, then I'm strong. So let me wrap all this up for us. So why did Tamar have to suffer so much? Theologically, the first answer is, well, why not her? We all deserve God's judgment. We all fall sin and fall short of God's glory. None of us deserve the blessings God gives us. So when judgment falls our way, we ought not to be surprised. Second, and this I think the most important, God loves us too much to change our external circumstances without changing us. He lets us continue to struggle with a particular trial because that's the tool in his hand that he's using to chisel our faith into maturity. So we have to trust that even though Tamar's path seems particularly difficult and hard, that that was the part of the process God used to bring her to a strong and vibrant faith, and that's a goal worth having. So God intends us to change us into the people he wants us to be, and his goal is to strengthen our faith, not to give us an easy life. And then finally, just to wrap it up, suffering is part of living in a fallen world. We should expect it. It's just part of the bro live being broken people and living around broken people in a broken world. But there is a purpose to it. If you are a believer, it is one of the primary tools God uses to make you into the person he wants you to be, and that is giving you a person with a strong and mature faith. And if you have faith, you have everything. Paul tells us in Corinthians that compared, that the sufferings we endure now are, he calls them momentary light afflictions in comparison to the eternal weight of glory that's coming. So you think about what Tamar went through and you go, momentary light affliction? Not so much. But what Paul's saying is, yes, even that, in comparison to what the glory that's going to come to us, it's worth it. It's the same thing Jesus is getting at when he says the kingdom of heaven is like that pearl of great price. If we could only glimpse how valuable it is, we would gladly sell everything to gain it. And I think the analogy is we would gladly suffer all of this and then some to gain the kingdom of heaven if we could just see now what it will be like. So we better stop there. Let me pray for us, and I'll give you a chance to ask some questions. Father, we know this is a hard passage. It's hard to see people suffer through no fault of their own, and we ask that you would teach us that you were in control, that we would trust you in the trials, no matter how big, no matter how small, no matter how much they make sense or make no sense at all, that we would learn that you are ultimately in control of everything, and that you let nothing go by that you don't use for our good, that you can redeem even the most tragic of circumstances, the most horrible of crimes, and bring something worthwhile and good out of it. My praying for each woman here, who I know everyone is struggling with something big, small, and maybe a whole lot of things in between, that you would be working these truths into our hearts to help us to hang on to the faith, to know that you're a God who we can trust no matter what, and that even in those dark nights of the soul that we would know that you were there and you could say that.