The Covid-19 crisis has exposed something very unsettling and disturbing for people: we no longer know who to listen to. Pro-vaccination, anti-vaccination, pro-masks, anti-masks, pro-vaccine immunity, pro-natural immunity. The internet has taken both true and false information, put it on an equal footing, so that everyone who has access can hear the advice on anyone. On the one hand, that’s a good thing, because it means knowledge is democratised and made available. On the other hand, it’s a bad thing, because it means authority is destroyed. We no longer have recognisable places of reliable expertise: authorities and experts who know what they’re talking about and give us the unvarnished truth. Oh, they’re still there, but how to tell them apart from the cranks, the click-baiters, the misguided, and the plain old fashioned madmen? Only an overweening sense of self-confidence believes I am in the position to adjudicate between experts with decades more experience than me.

In fact, Scripture teaches us the kinds of people to trust, it teaches us principles of reason and argumentation by which to evaluate information, and it gives us an overall worldview to filter that information through. The widespread chaos in the Christian world is just showing us the underbelly of the church: Christians either reason badly, or don’t have a Christian worldview, or trust the wrong people for the wrong reasons.

But there is one more piece of the confusion puzzle, and it is maybe the heart of it all. The Bible teaches us that we choose to be persuaded by what our hearts want. This goes way beyond Covid-19, and enters into the choices you make all the time: relationship decisions, business decisions, financial decisions, health decisions. We all have to get advice, get counsel, get information. But why we decide the way we do is not a question purely of intelligence. It is a question of our hearts, of what we love, of what we want. We find persuasive that counsel which appeals to us.

That means if you want to know why you listen to the voices you do, why you find their reasoning compelling, why you like their conclusions, the place to start is within. What is your heart’s treasure? What do you desire above all else? What do you cling to, and want more than anything else? Those desires are the steering wheel of your whole reasoning faculty.

We’ll see this graphically illustrated for us in 2 Samuel, in the account of Absalom coming to Jerusalem, and the kind of counsel he received.

This is a spy story centuries before Tom Clancy or John Le Carre would ever write, with plenty of intrigue and espionage. It’s a story about good counsel from a bad man, and bad counsel from a good man. Most of all, it’s a story about how hearts are drawn to the kind of counsel that they want, hearts are looking for the advice they like the most. We’re going to see how Absalom is brought low because his heart was corrupted by pride, and he listened to the wrong voices.

Here’s where we are in this account. David’s son Absalom had been plotting to overthrow his father for many years, slowly winning the hearts of Israel, and quietly building up a military force. When the day came, Absalom had his conspirators ready in Hebron, with a crowd of innocents. He blew the trumpet, crowned himself king, and essentially activated all his sleeper cells across the country. His ace-in-the-hole was the genius counsellor Ahithophel, who had joined his conspiracy. This man was like a consultant who could charge a million dollars an hour, so brilliant and esteemed was his strategy.

David got word that this conspiracy was on, and realised he needed to get out of the city or risk being trapped and executed. He got out with his best men, and went into hiding. When David heard that Ahithophel had gone over to Absalom, he was probably close to despair, thinking that now all was lost. All he could do was pray, “Lord, please overturn the counsel of Ahithophel.” David sent back into Jerusalem three people loyal to him: the two priests Zadok and Abiathar, and one of his best counselors, Hushai, to pretend to be loyal to Absalom. They would serve as his spy network in the city while he and his men caught their breath, gathered up their strength, and came up with a plan for what to do next.

That brings us to our account today, when upstart prince Absalom now marches into Jerusalem, having achieved a bloodless coup, but is scratching his head as to what to do next. He didn’t expect it to be so easy.

I. The Clever Counsel of Evil Ahithophel

Meanwhile Absalom and all the people, the men of Israel, came to Jerusalem; and Ahithophel was with him.

And so it was, when Hushai the Archite, David’s friend, came to Absalom, that Hushai said to Absalom, “Long live the king! Long live the king!”

So Absalom said to Hushai, “Is this your loyalty to your friend? Why did you not go with your friend?”

And Hushai said to Absalom, “No, but whom the LORD and this people and all the men of Israel choose, his I will be, and with him I will remain.

“Furthermore, whom should I serve? Should I not serve in the presence of his son? As I have served in your father’s presence, so will I be in your presence.”

Absalom is met by someone he didn’t expect, the man that David sent back into Jerusalem. Notice Hushai says “long live the king”, but he doesn’t say, “Long Live King Absalom”. He tells Absalom that he will serve whomever the Lord chooses over Israel, but he is really speaking about David. God hasn’t chosen Absalom to rule Israel, but David. He wants David to live long. But he shrewdly veils that, and then says, “Doesn’t it make sense that I should stay loyal to the family, serve David, and then his son.” Apparently, Absalom is convinced, and flattered. People coming over to your side is always flattering to the ego, so he lets Hushai stay.

But now Absalom is in Jerusalem, David has fled, not a drop of blood has been spilt, what should he do? Unlike David, he does not consult God, and look into the Urim and Thummim. He asks Ahithophel.

Everything Ahithophel is going to counsel is correct, though it is wicked. In other words, it is the shrewdest, most pragmatic, most useful thing to do if you want to achieve what Absalom does. Ahithophel is like many modern books, consultants, podcasts, YouTube channels. What they say will work, it is a technique that will succeed, but it isn’t God’s way, it doesn’t come from a biblical view of mankind, and what man is for, it isn’t a form of love for one’s neighbour.

Then Absalom said to Ahithophel, “Give advice as to what we should do.”

And Ahithophel said to Absalom, “Go in to your father’s concubines, whom he has left to keep the house; and all Israel will hear that you are abhorred by your father. Then the hands of all who are with you will be strong.”

So they pitched a tent for Absalom on the top of the house, and Absalom went in to his father’s concubines in the sight of all Israel.

Ahithophel is counselling Absalom to do something that was a common practice in Ancient Near-Eastern kingdoms. Whoever owned the king’s harem was the king. Concubines, though frowned upon by Scripture, were like quasi-wives, they had official royal provision and protection, but they did not have the same rank as an official wife of the king. They were not what we would call a mistress, they were more like someone of lower rank or class, who became an additional wife. For Absalom to perform this terrible crime would be a public statement that he now owned what was dearest and best to David.

Not only so, but Ahithophel knew that this would be understood by everyone as an act of hostility and enmity between father and son. Israelites who might be leaning both ways, hoping for a reconciliation between father and son will now know that this is a permanent breach that is going to end in the death of one or the other. But an unscrupulous politician like Ahithophel knows that if David and Absalom reconcile, his head will be on the chopping block. He wants this to be a permanent break.

So a tent is set up, so this lurid wickedness was probably still kept private, but at the same time, the presence of the tent was a public act so that everyone in Jerusalem understood that Absalom was taking David’s throne, and defiling David’s inheritance. And even though this is Absalom’s sin, we can’t help remembering the words of Nathan announced on David :

Thus says the LORD: ‘Behold, I will raise up adversity against you from your own house; and I will take your wives before your eyes and give them to your neighbor, and he shall lie with your wives in the sight of this sun.

For you did it secretly, but I will do this thing before all Israel, before the sun.’ (2 Samuel 12:11–12)

Why does Absalom take this advice? Because it is the kind of advice his heart wanted to hear. Immoral pleasure, combined with revenge, combined with a display of power. A better man would have been repelled by the very idea. But Ahithophel knew who he was dealing with, and what Absalom would be drawn to.

But now something needs to be done about David himself. And Ahithophel’s counsel is strategically brilliant.

Now the advice of Ahithophel, which he gave in those days, was as if one had inquired at the oracle of God. So was all the advice of Ahithophel both with David and with Absalom.

Moreover Ahithophel said to Absalom, “Now let me choose twelve thousand men, and I will arise and pursue David tonight.

I will come upon him while he is weary and weak, and make him afraid. And all the people who are with him will flee, and I will strike only the king.

Then I will bring back all the people to you. When all return except the man whom you seek, all the people will be at peace.”

And the saying pleased Absalom and all the elders of Israel. (2 Samuel 16:23–17:4)

Ahithophel knows that the only chance a spoilt, pampered prince has against an elite soldier like David is if he capitalises on the haste and chaos in David’s camp. Ahithophel knows that once David can catch his breath and organise his troops, Absalom doesn’t have a chance. If David is given more than a few hours, he will find a strategically defensible spot, he will strengthen his own fighting force, and very likely recruit allies from the neighboring kingdoms to whom he was related by blood and marriage. In fact, David spent seven years doing guerilla warfare when Saul was pursuing him. He is a master at it, and once David has the time to camp and plan, the battle is lost.

So Ahithophel counsels a quick surgical strike. Twelve thousand will be enough to surround David an overwhelm his few hundred mighty men, but the target will be David himself, whose age will make him slower and easier to target. David’s supporters probably already have low morale, and the death of their leader will make any further resistance evaporate. Once David is dead, the battle will be over, and Absalom will have the whole country on a platter.

Ahithophel’s advice is correct, though it is treason, it is foul rebellion and revolt of the worst kind. In fact, in the 14th-century Dante’s Inferno, where he imagines Hell being of different levels or circles, nine of them, where the sin is increasingly more wicked. In his system, the first circle was limbo, followed by Lust, then Gluttony, then Greed, then Anger, then Heresy, then Violence, then Fraud and worst of all, the ninth circle – Treachery. There Dante places people like Judas, Brutus and others, and he put Ahithophel here.

Treachery in respect of David, but true in respect of success. It is treason, but it is the best strategy.

In fact, it is a no-brainer. How can it go wrong? Verse 14 gives you the answer: “For the Lord had purposed to defeat the good advice of Ahithophel, to the intent that the Lord might bring disaster on Absalom.”

How did that take place?

II. The Crooked Counsel of Good Hushai

Then Absalom said, “Now call Hushai the Archite also, and let us hear what he says too.”

And when Hushai came to Absalom, Absalom spoke to him, saying, “Ahithophel has spoken in this manner. Shall we do as he says? If not, speak up.”

So Hushai said to Absalom: “The advice that Ahithophel has given is not good at this time.

“For,” said Hushai, “you know your father and his men, that they are mighty men, and they are enraged in their minds, like a bear robbed of her cubs in the field; and your father is a man of war, and will not camp with the people.

Surely by now he is hidden in some pit, or in some other place. And it will be, when some of them are overthrown at the first, that whoever hears it will say, ‘There is a slaughter among the people who follow Absalom.’

And even he who is valiant, whose heart is like the heart of a lion, will melt completely. For all Israel knows that your father is a mighty man, and those who are with him are valiant men.

Therefore I advise that all Israel be fully gathered to you, from Dan to Beersheba, like the sand that is by the sea for multitude, and that you go to battle in person.

So we will come upon him in some place where he may be found, and we will fall on him as the dew falls on the ground. And of him and all the men who are with him there shall not be left so much as one.

Moreover, if he has withdrawn into a city, then all Israel shall bring ropes to that city; and we will pull it into the river, until there is not one small stone found there.”

So Absalom and all the men of Israel said, “The advice of Hushai the Archite is better than the advice of Ahithophel.” For the LORD had purposed to defeat the good advice of Ahithophel, to the intent that the LORD might bring disaster on Absalom. (2 Samuel 17:5–14)

Hushai is David’s man, and he instantly knows that Ahithophel’s counsel would succeed. But it wasn’t difficult for an old statesman, experienced in debate and analysis, to conjure up difficulties and dangers to feed into the ear of inexperienced Absalom.

No, for once, Hushai says, Ahithophel’s advice is not the best. Usually it is, but it is not good this time. You see, David is now like a wounded animal, ready to strike. Hushai begins with Absalom’s greatest insecurity—David’s military reputation. If you go with that little force of 12,000 men, David will strike, take out some of your men, and panic will break out, they’ll think “It’s the old David again, David and Goliath all over again, and it will be total rout, and everyone will turn back to David.

And now Hushai turns on the flattery. “Much rather, gather the entire army from the north to the south of Israel. You lead the army in your royal regalia. Inevitably, those hundreds of thousands will just overwhelm him with sheer force of number, And even if he holes himself up in some fortified town, the amount of men you’ll have will pull it apart brick by brick. But you’ll be there, king Absalom, personally defeating David the so-called warrior.

“Hushai persuades Absalom with a fantasy of glorious, total conquest that appeals to the prince who likes to cut a figure in his chariot with fifty attendant runners, and who was pleased to burn down a man’s field in order to get his attention.” (Pinsky, Robert. “The Life of David”).

Now Absalom is flattered and his pride chooses the bad counsel of Hushai. His heart is drawn out by pride, and even though Ahithophel’s plan will work, he is choosing according to vanity, and worldly logic.

Again verse 14 tells us why this succeeded. For the LORD had purposed to defeat the good advice of Ahithophel, to the intent that the LORD might bring disaster on Absalom.

Here is the mystery of the human will and God’s sovereignty. God willed that Absalom should be defeated and judged for his sin. But God didn’t force Absalom to do anything. Instead, in the mystery of how God works in the human heart, evil men found bad counsel compelling and persuasive, instead of the intelligent counsel they needed. When the Bible says God hardened Pharaoh’s heart, it does not mean that God forced Pharaoh to do evil. It means that once Pharaoh rejected God, God chose to use him as an instrument, and lifted the restraints on his heart, emboldened him to pursue his own evil.

There is no greater judgement than when God’s Spirit, who is ever striving with us with good counsel, calling on us to forsake sin and come to Him, when that Spirit gives us up to the counsels of our own hearts, allows us to find our own foolishness persuasive.

There is a way that seems right to a man, But its end is the way of death. (Proverbs 14:12)

The way of a fool is right in his own eyes, But he who heeds counsel is wise. (Proverbs 12:15)

Look at the peril of our hearts: when led by selfish pride, we are attracted to whatever we think will help us most. We are not neutral, objective beings, who take in information like your computer takes in data. We are beings driven by love and desire, and everything we hear we filter through those desires. If those desires are evil, our whole interpretation and understanding is evil. If they are good it fills our whole understanding with that goodness. This is what Jesus was talking about in the Sermon on the Mount when He said,

“The lamp of the body is the eye. If therefore your eye is good, your whole body will be full of light.

But if your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If therefore the light that is in you is darkness, how great is that darkness!” (Matthew 6:22–23)

If God wants to destroy you, like He wanted to destroy wicked Absalom, all He has to do is let you be persuaded by your own heart. There is enough self-destructive foolishness in every heart to ruin you in this life and the next:

There is a way that seems right to a man, But its end is the way of death. (Proverbs 14:12)

Now what follows in verses 15-22 is that Hushai quickly uses the spy network in Jerusalem. Just in case Absalom changes his mind and goes back to Ahithophel’s counsel, he sends word through the two priests Abiathar and Zadok that David should not stay in the wilderness. The two priests have two sons Jonathan and Ahimaaz who are hiding in a nearby town, En-Rogel. A female messenger goes to tell them the news, but unfortunately they are spotted, and the boy who spots her tells Absalom. They rush to the nearby town of Bahurim. Absalom sends a search party, but they hide in a well, which is covered up and sprinkled with grain.

The search party gives up and returns to Absalom, and the two sons make it to David to tell him to cross over the Jordan. In verses 24 to 29, we read that he does so and is then met by some allies who bring him provisions and food.

David has been delivered, and has exactly the advantage he needs, the one Ahithophel feared he would get.

For someone as smart as Ahithophel, he knows exactly where this is headed.

Now when Ahithophel saw that his advice was not followed, he saddled a donkey, and arose and went home to his house, to his city. Then he put his household in order, and hanged himself, and died; and he was buried in his father’s tomb. (2 Samuel 17:23)

This man, with characteristic planning, and methodical approach, plans his own death with as much forethought as he had planned David’s. Puts his house in order, makes sure everyone is provisioned for, and then commits the deed so rare in Israel, suicide. Why did he do this?

Some of it may have been just the shame and disgrace of not having his counsel followed. But probably looming larger was the fact that he knew Absalom would now lose. He knew that Hushai’s counsel would be inevitable defeat for Absalom. And once David was back on the throne, Ahithophel would face either exile or execution. Better to make his family comfortable, and then take care of the execution himself.

In Ahithophel we also have a tragic picture of that man who also having been a friend and companion of Jesus, chose to betray Him, and then, filled with regret, went and hanged himself. A tragic end for one who chose to use his intelligence and insight for evil purposes. A bright mind is no substitute for an obedient heart. Those blessed with gifted intellect carry with them a weapon sharp enough to injure themselves. Turn that ability and intelligence to selfish purposes, and your very intelligence will end up in stupidity, your clarity will become darkness, your sharpness become dull.

Both Ahithophel and Absalom were men led by their evil desires. Both of them were brilliant, but both of them became fools – people who listened to the wrong voices, reasoned in the wrong way, and came to a wrong conclusion.

This is why Scripture tells us that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. You don’t get wise and then begin reverencing God, putting God first, loving God. You start there. Whatever mental faculties God has given you, you begin with total submission to God. And that is not some vague generic Creator, that is the God revealed in the Bible, the triune God, the God who became man to die for our sins. He said this about choosing authorities.

“Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ravenous wolves.

You will know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes from thornbushes or figs from thistles?

Even so, every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit.

A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a bad tree bear good fruit. (Matthew 7:15–18)

“Therefore whoever hears these sayings of Mine, and does them, I will liken him to a wise man who built his house on the rock:

and the rain descended, the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house; and it did not fall, for it was founded on the rock.

“But everyone who hears these sayings of Mine, and does not do them, will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand:

and the rain descended, the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house; and it fell. And great was its fall.” (Matthew 7:24–27)

People whose hearts are captivated by the love of God build their lives on the lordship of Jesus. They are not tossed to and fro with every wind of doctrine, with controversies, with speculative theories. They start with a Christian worldview, they choose authorities, even unbelieving authorities using wise, Scriptural criteria, they reason like Christians, and they regularly check their hearts. What is it that I want? What is it that I want to believe, or wish were true? Do I want the truth, no matter how inconvenient to myself, no matter how scary or uncomfortable or convicting, or challenging? Am I truly in pursuit of God and His Word?

The way of Absalom is Psalm 14:1: The fool has said in his heart, There is no God.

The way of David is Psalm 25:14 The secret of the LORD is with those who fear Him, And He will show them His covenant.