Dear Friends of "Dial Daily Bread,"
Have you ever wondered why Joab (the general of King David's army) never hesitated a moment to kill the rebel Absalom when he saw him caught in an oak tree? (2 Sam. 18:9). Joab did not call a council of the other generals, nor ask advice of anyone. The moment he saw Absalom in that tree, he made a split-second decision that this man doesn't deserve life in prison or exile; he deserves death. Hence the three arrows through Absalom's heart (vs. 14). King David had begged him not to harm his son, but no matter. Joab knew his duty.
I asked a group of children if they could tell me why Joab did that. "He hated him." "He didn't want Absalom to become king." "He acted hastily." No one had the real answer.
It's found in Deuteronomy 21:22, 23--a law of Moses. "He who is hanged is accursed of God." Paul understood it clearly: "Cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree" (Gal. 3:13). Everybody believed it.
So when Joab saw Absalom swinging in that oak tree helpless, he knew that he was witnessing a judgment of God, not only on Absalom's political rebellion against the crown, but on himself. He had continually and persistently resisted every conviction of the Holy Spirit. He had done what Jesus called the "sin against the Holy Spirit."
I asked the children if they knew of anyone else who was "cursed of God." One little boy said, "Yes, Jesus!" That's what made His death so terrible. It was more than the physical pain of the wounds. It was the descent into the never-ending horror of eternal separation from God. It was the second death, which you and I would otherwise have had to experience.
--Robert J. Wieland
From the "Dial Daily Bread" Archive: October 29, 2002.
Copyright © 2013 by "Dial Daily Bread."
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