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[crickets chirping] [music] The Case of the Fatal Friendship, a message by Dr. Bruce W. Thielman. [music]

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The Old Testament reading of the evening is from the book of 2 Samuel, the 13th chapter, beginning the reading at the verse numbered 1. "Now Absalom, David's son, had a beautiful sister whose name was Tamar.

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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. But Amnon had a friend whose name was Jonadab, the son of Shemiah, David's brother.

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And Jonadab was a very crafty man. And he said to him, 'O son of the king, why are you so haggard morning after morning? Will you not tell me?' Amnon said to him, 'I love Tamar, my brother Absalom's sister.'

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Jonadab said to him, 'Lie down on your bed and pretend to be ill, and when your father comes to see you, say to him, 'Let my sister Tamar come and give me bread to eat, and prepare the food in my sight that I may see it and eat it from her hand.'

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So Amnon lay down and pretended to be ill, and when the king came to see him, Amnon said to the king, 'Pray let my sister Tamar come and make a couple of cakes in my sight that I may eat from her hand.' Then David sent home to Tamar, saying, 'Go to your brother Amnon's house and prepare food for him.'

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So Tamar went to her brother Amnon's house where he was lying down, and she took dough and kneaded it and made cakes in his sight and baked the cakes, and she took the pan and emptied it out before him, but he refused to eat. And Amnon said, 'Send out everyone from me.'

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So everyone went out from him. And Amnon said to Tamar, 'Bring the food into the chamber that I may eat from your hand.' And Tamar took the cakes she had made and brought them into the chamber to Amnon her brother. But when she brought them near to him, he took hold of her and said to her,

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'Come lie with me, my sister.' She answered him, 'No, my brother, do not force me, for such a thing is not done in Israel. Do not do this wanton folly. As for me, where should I carry my shame?

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As for you, you would be as one of the wanton fools in Israel. Now therefore I pray you speak to the king, for he will not withhold me from you in marriage.' But he would not listen to her, and being stronger than she, he forced her and lay with her. Then Amnon hated her with a very great hatred,

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so that the hatred with which he hated her was greater than the love with which he had loved her. And Amnon said to her, 'Arise, be gone.' But she said to him, 'No, my brother, for this wrong in sending me away is greater than the other which you did to me.' But he would not listen to her.

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He called the young man who served him and said, 'Put this woman out of my presence and bolt the door after her.' Now she was wearing a long robe with sleeves, for thus were the virgin daughters of the king clad of old. So his servant put her out and bolted the door after her, and Tamar put ashes on her head and rent the long robe which she wore,

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and she laid her hand on her head and went away, crying aloud as she went. 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 dwelt a desolate woman in her brother Absalom's house.

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When King David heard all of these things, he was very angry. But Absalom spoke to Amnon neither good nor bad, for Absalom hated Amnon because he had forced his sister Tamar. After two full years, Absalom had sheep shears at Beth Hazar, which is near Ephraim.

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And Absalom invited all the king's sons. And Absalom came to the king and said, 'Behold, your servant has sheep shears. Pray let the king and his servants go with your servant.' But the king said to Absalom, 'No, my son, let us not all go, lest we be burdensome to you.'

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He pressed him, but he would not go, but gave him his blessing. Then Absalom said, 'If not, pray let my brother Amnon go with us.' And the king said to him, 'Why should he go with you?' But Absalom pressed him until he let Amnon and all the king's sons go with him.

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Then Absalom commanded his servants, 'Mark when Amnon's heart is merry with wine, and when I say to you, "Strike Amnon," kill him. Fear not, have I not commanded you, be courageous and be valiant.' So the servants of Absalom did to Amnon as Absalom had commanded.

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Then all the king's sons arose, and each mounted his mule and fled." And may God bless to us this reading from his word. Will you pray with me? In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.

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Amen. It is cold enough, and it is windy enough, but I wish it were raining. And I wish the air was filled with the sound of thunders and lightning. I wish this were a night most miserable.

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Because the place to which we go in our thinking tonight is one of the utmost sadness and despair. And the story we contemplate, one of the most tragic in all of Scripture. You say, "Why bring such a story to this place on this occasion? Isn't it better to accentuate the positive than the negative?"

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Yes, generally that's so. But sometimes we need to hear about a "no" rather than a "yes." And under God's Spirit, I feel that this is one of those times. The story is not difficult to follow.

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A young man, Amnon, son of a king, born to the purple. Lusts after his half-sister Tamar. His conscience battles within him. His inner self tells him that his lust is wrong.

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His fleshly desires tell him that he must have her. The tension is so great that he is reduced to despair, to anxiety. And so much despair and anxiety that it becomes evident to those about him. The Scriptures note that this young man, Amnon, had a friend, Jonadab.

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And that Jonadab was a very crafty man. Jonadab comes up with a plan. "Are you not the king's son? Get the king to send this woman to minister to you.

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Pretend you're sick. Pray something for you, and then have your will with her." So Amnon puts the plan into action. And the girl comes, anxious to be of service to her older and more distinguished half-brother.

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She bakes the cakes. He sends all those who are in the suite of rooms set aside for him out of his presence. And then says, "Come into the inner chamber and serve me there." Innocently, unsuspectingly, she follows him.

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And when he gets her to the inner chamber, he asks her to lie with him. She refuses. She says, "Ask the king. If you want me, ask the king.

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Perhaps he will give you my hand in marriage." Such things were commonly done in that day. A half-sister could marry her half-brother. But Amnon didn't want her for a wife.

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He wanted her as the fulfillment of his lust. And so he raped her. And then, as is so often the case, he despised the one he had wanted and ordered her out of his presence. A double shame, to have been robbed of her virginity and now to be made an object of scorn.

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She had entered in the lovely robes of a virgin daughter of the king. As she leaves, she tears those robes, puts ashes upon her and sackcloth, and goes out in mourning. The king hears of it and is angry. Absalom, her full brother, hears of it and is angry, too, but buys his time.

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Two years later, at Belhazor, there is a sheep-shearing festival, and Amnon is there. And when his heart was merry with wine, at the command of Absalom, he is slain. And he is buried there. And it is to the place of his entombment that we go tonight.

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That's the reason I wish it was raining and cold with thunder and lightning, and we could push aside the leaves and we could see on the tombstone of Amnon this epitaph, "Amnon had a friend." You see, everything argued against Amnon doing what he did.

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His own conscience spoke within him, urging him to refrain from the act, but Amnon had a friend. The voice of innocence cried out to him. This lovely young girl comes, anxious to minister to him. She even offers to be married to him.

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Perhaps there was in her some love for this man. He could have had her as his own wife, but Amnon had a friend. His father was the king, his brother the prince of the land. He was himself a prince, a member of the royal family.

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Everything that they did was to be an example to the whole constituency. They led the community in acts of worship, and now he brought discord within the family, and anger and tension, and he knew that these things would come. He understood this, but Amnon had a friend.

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And he was spiritually sophisticated enough to understand God's law, that the God who invented sex told us how we are to use it. He understood that when sex is handled in an impure, in an unseemly fashion, that disease follows, that women are treated like animals, that men lose their sense of responsibility,

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that children are brought into the world unwanted and unloved. He knew all of those things, but Amnon had a friend, Jonathan, a very crafty man. And then judgment came, as it always comes, sometimes in two minutes, sometimes in two hours, sometimes in two weeks, two months, two years.

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It always comes. God is not mocked. As we sow, we will reap in this life or outside of it. For Amnon, it was two years, a sheep-shearing festival, good food, good wine, good friends, a good time about a good fire. And when his heart was merry, Absalom gave the word, and the dagger of judgment flashed in the firelight,

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and Amnon died. But notice, Jonathan was not there. The verse that most young couples pick to appear at one point or another in their wedding services is this one from the book of Ruth.

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"Entreat me not to leave thee, or to depart from following after thee. For whither thou goest, I will go; where thou dost lodge, I will lodge. Thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God." A great profession of friendship made by Ruth to her mother-in-law, Naomi.

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The very word "Ruth" means "a friend." A friend is one who is with you. And now when the dagger flashes, Jonathan is not there. You say it's an old story? Yes.

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A very old story. But it's still being written today. Look at the tombstone. It's designed for this time.

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But Amnon had a friend. Of course, it is our nature to crave friendship. We do not like to be alone. The hunter far out in the woods, if he is by himself, at least will have his dog.

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I may not be able to understand the Trinity with my head, but I understand it with my heart, because I am made in the image of God, and the same God who craves fellowship within his own company, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, has written the need for fellowship upon the hearts and minds of all of us who are made in his image.

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We stand here in Western civilization as the heirs of both the Hebraic and the Greek traditions. And as you trace those two traditions, you find in both of them the exaltation of friendship. Abraham, the founder of the Jewish people, was called the friend of God. Moses at one point was discussing the temptation to follow false gods,

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and he makes a list of those who might tempt you, and he moves in his list from those not closely related to those very closely related. Notice what he says. "If thy brother, or if the son of thy mother, or thy son, or thy daughter,"

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(now he's getting more personal) "or the wife of thy bosom," and now most personal, "or if thy friend, which is as thine own life, entice thee, consent not." You see, Moses held friendship as the highest of human relationships.

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Jesus picks up this same theme. He never sent the disciples out alone. He sent them two by two. He did not send the seventy out to ministry in seventy different directions,

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but rather in thirty-five directions, two by two. He said to his disciples, "I do not call you servants. I call you friends of the whole New Testament." It's the story of friends who minister in the name of Jesus.

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Peter and John, Paul and Barnabas, Paul and Silas, our whole Hebraic Christian tradition is full of the lifting up of friendship. And the Greek tradition as well. The oldest Greek philosopher of whom we have any certain knowledge

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is Pythagoras from the sixth century B.C. We have only one sentence which we know that he wrote for sure, and that sentence is this, "A friend is one half of one's soul." Plato says that Socrates said, "Friends are my passion.

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I would rather have one true friend than all the gold of Darius." Plato himself has given his name to one of the most perfect relationships. We talk about a platonic relationship, meaning a friendly relationship in which no selfish demand is presented.

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Aristotle wrote the greatest essay on friendship ever written. It was the theme of themes for him. Zeno, the leader of the Stoic school, called friendship the highest of human virtues.

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Epicurus, who exalted doing what you wanted to for yourself and ignoring the needs of others, said that without friendship, the happy life is nothing. Whether you go back to our Hebrew roots or back to our Greek roots,

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the exaltation of friendship is there. We all want to have friends. A little child wants friends. Dr. Howard Maxwell, the psychologist out in Los Angeles,

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said that a girl would come to him every night and ask him to read The Three Little Pigs, the same book, every night. So finally he read the story into a tape recorder, and he told her when she came to that time of night,

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just press the button and the tape recorder would read her the story. But after three nights, she came knocking on his door again. "Well, you've got the tape recorder?" He said. "Just press the button and you'll hear the story."

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She said, "Yes, but I can't climb up into the lap of a tape recorder." She wanted a more intimate friendship. The desire that's in the heart of a little child is also in the heart of a very old and a very wise man.

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Albert Einstein's wife died in 1936. And after she died, Einstein's sister and his closest friend, Mejia, cared for him until 1950 when she suffered a stroke and was unconscious in a coma for many days.

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There was no evidence whatever that she was conscious of anything about her. Yet every day, Einstein would go to her room and sit and read and talk with her for at least two hours because he wanted her to know in any moment of consciousness that might be hers

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that she had a friend. We like to share our joys with our friends. When someone pays you a compliment, well, you just can't go around and tell it to everybody.

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It sounds like boasting, but you can tell it to your friend, and your friend rejoices with you. Did you hear about the young preacher who loved golf and heard about the new course, wanted so much to play it but was always crowded?

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The only time he thought he might be able to get in a game was very early on a Sunday morning, but he was always telling his people it was evil to play golf on Sunday. So he assigned one of his assistant ministers to preach,

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and he went very early in the morning before he expected anyone to be there, and he broke no partner so no one would see him in the midst of the act. But St. Peter and some angels were watching from heaven, and when he teed up, one of the angels said,

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"Do you see what that preacher is doing down there?" And St. Peter said, "Yes, and I'll fix him good." And so just as he came through with his first shot, St. Peter pointed a finger, and the ball went down the fairway,

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sliced off to the right, hit a tree, bounced from that tree to another tree, bounced from that tree to another tree, rolled into a sewer, through the sewer, down 18 stone steps, around the edge of a pond, between two sand traps, onto the green, across the green,

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and into the cup for a whole one. And the angel said, "We thought you were going to punish him." St. Peter said, "I did punish him. Who's he going to be able to tell about it?"

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Well, we always like some people we can tell about it, and that's one of the things we can do with our friends, and we can not only share our joys, we can also share our discouragements. This last week I was staying in the home of Harold and Audrey Auchengay up in New England.

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Their home was built in 1714, and once Lafayette stayed there in 1824. Lafayette and Jefferson were great friends during the days of the Revolution. They went through those discouraging and hard times together, and then they were separated, one in France, the other in the United States,

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for a period of 35 years. They corresponded during that time, but they were never in touch. And then in 1824, President Monroe invited Lafayette to come, and he stayed one night there in New England

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and then hurried south to Monticello to see Jefferson. By this time, Lafayette was 67 years old and Jefferson was 81. Jefferson's grandson, John Randolph, wrote about the meeting of the two in his diary. That's how we know what happened.

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He says that when Lafayette got down from his carriage, the 81-year-old Jefferson, moving with shuffling gait, came across the porch, down onto the lawn, then broke into a run, and they fell into one another's arms with tears.

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Having shared so much in difficult times, you see, there was the desire to share again. And we not only like to share our joys with our friends and our discouragements, but even our anger. With our friends, we can let it all hang out and say the way we really feel.

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George Burns and Jack Benny had a very meaningful friendship, and someone asked Burns how it continued for so many years, and he said, "Well, we agreed. He would never walk out on my singing, and I would never walk out on his playing the violin."

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That's what a friend does. A friend is willing to hear us no matter how bad we might sound at any given moment. Emerson put it this way, "Oh, the comfort, the inexpressible comfort of feeling safe with a person, having neither to weigh your thoughts nor measure your words,

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but pouring them all out just as they are, the chaff and the grain together, certain that a friendly hand will take them and sift them and keep what is worth keeping and with a breath of kindness blow all the rest away." That's what our friends do.

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They take us like a fine picture or a rare statue, and they put us up so that we're always in the best light. This is the reason we love the blessing of friendship. Please turn your cassette to the other side.

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[A friend's friendship is a friend's friendship] But this tombstone, this tombstone, this gray, hard, cold, ugly stone says, "Amnon had a friend." A friend, you see, can be a curse.

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There are three great costs to friendship. The first is the cost in self-surrender. The second is the cost of the things you do for your friend. And the third is the cost you might suffer because of things you receive from your friend.

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It seems to me that this is an especially important word for you younger people because you're choosing your friends now. You are selecting here in your college experience those who, by and large, will lift or lower your life for the remainder of your days.

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You're tangling your experience with those who are going to help you mount up with wings like eagles or who will cripple you. Holmes said in The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table that your friends are those who have a key to the side door of your heart and can enter whenever they will.

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So you're handing out the keys to the side doors of your heart right now. And the warning of Scripture here in this sad and tragic story is simply this, "An evil man cannot be a good friend." I heard two faculty members on our campus talking about a young man whom they were trying to assist.

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And one said to the other with great sadness, "I'm afraid it's hopeless. He's fallen into and with the wrong crowd." An evil man can't be a good friend. I remember hearing David Wilkerson tell about a young man he was trying to lead or write.

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The young man's name was Fernandez. This was in a ghetto in New York City. He tried with every way that he knew how to reach that young man to be his friend, but Fernandez had already chosen other friends, Jonah Dabbs.

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And they took him off one night in the freedom which they said he ought to claim. And they went up to the top of one of those tenement houses, and there they mainlined with heroin, and he overdosed. Of course, they did the usual things you try to do in a circumstance like this.

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They put hot and cold claws on his face, and they injected salt water into his veins, but none of it worked. He died. They left the body there. They went down to the street.

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For two days they stayed away from the place. And then, finding it hard to come up with the money for another fix, they went back up to the roof, to the still-unfound body of their friend, and they stripped it of all its clothes,

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and they pawned the clothes for the money to buy some more stuff. Friends. They came to Fernandez with exactly the same words that Jonah Dabbs used a long time ago. "Aren't you the king's son? Aren't you free? Can't you make your own choices?

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Isn't the world your apple? You're not going to be bound by what your father and mother say. You don't take Sunday school teachers seriously, do you? And administrators who have other axes to grind, really, are they to be heard?

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I mean, live a little! Do as you please, when you want to, the way you want to, how you want to. And we'll stand and watch. We're your friends.

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And souls die." Oh, Jonah Dabbs. I am conscious of your being here tonight. I cannot identify you by face, but I know your name.

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I know you're sitting out there listening to me and thinking about those whom you yourself have led down the path. And perhaps tonight, you'd like to be able to forget that. Well, Jonah Dabbs, I have something to tell you.

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You will never forget that. Except you repent, you will take it with you to your grave and beyond. And some of you listening to me now remember when you met your Jonah Dabbs and how by the grace of God you were able to stand aside.

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You heard the song of the siren and turned away and said, "Get thee behind me." You know the seriousness of which I speak and you know too there's only three things to hold on to when Jonah Dabbs comes. First, your convictions.

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Decide what your standards will be and then stand beside those standards. I had a guest this last summer, and on the first morning he was there, I was trying to fix breakfast. I said, "I'll fix eggs however you like them. How would you like them?" "Oh, I don't care. Any way you'd like."

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I said, "I can make them scrambled. I can make them fried, soft, toast, whatever you-- No, I don't care. That's all right. I really--you know, I'll make them however you would like me to make them. I don't really care. You choose for yourself." I said, "All right. We'll have fried. Good.

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Do you want them sunny side up or do you want them over lightly or do you want them hard? I really don't care." It got to the place where I would have liked to have thrown the eggs at him while they were still in their shells.

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Decide. It is said that William James built a house in which every door and every window opened outward so that he and he alone could decide who and what would enter. That's the way to live.

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Run your flag up, take your stand, and decide who and what may enter. And then, hanging on to your convictions, also hold fast to your courage because, of course, as soon as you take a stand, there will be those who attack you. John Wesley said, "I will have no man as my friend who will not help me get to heaven."

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But as soon as you take that kind of stand, Jonah dabs. Gather all about. A father sent his son off to a lumberjack camp to work for the summer. He warned him it was an unchristian environment.

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"Be careful," he said. The boy promised that he would and went off. At the end of the summer, he returned. His father said, "How was it?"

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The boy said, "It wasn't difficult at all, Dad. No one up there ever found out I was a Christian." But if you hold fast to your convictions, they'll find out. And when they find out, there will be a loneliness for at least a little while,

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and you must stand with courage in that time till others who have the same flag as you come and stand with you. And where do you get this courage and these convictions? From holding on to Jesus Christ. "Greater love hath no man than this, that he lay down his life for his friends."

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And Jesus Christ is the great friend who laid down his life for us. One of my favorite personalities to come out of the Second World War period was Dietrich von Hoifer, the German theologian. I often wonder what he would have produced had he been allowed to live, but he was an enemy of Hitler, and so he was imprisoned by the Nazis.

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He had a marvelous ministry in the prison camp and by letters. He touched many lives, and those lives were changed from that day until this. And three days, just three days before the Allies got to the prison camp where he was interred, he was leading the devotions in the morning when the Gestapo entered and called him away.

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And he said to those whom he was leading in worship, "This is for me the end and the beginning of life." And they took him out and hanged him. Now where did the convictions and the courage of that life come from? Well, read his letters.

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One that particularly fascinates me is a letter, the PS to which, reads as follows. Read Proverbs 18, verse 24, and don't forget it. Proverbs 18, verse 24 reads, "There are friends who pretend to be friends, but there is one friend who sticks close as a brother.

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And that one friend is Jesus." So look at the stone one last time with me. Cold, gray, hard, old, new, there, here. Amnon had a friend.

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Now let's get away from this place. It is not pleasant even to be here. Let us pray. O God, our Father, we thank thee that thou hast made us so that we need and yearn for friends.

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And we thank thee that thou hast brought us to a place where we can find those friends who will stand with us in oneness with Jesus Christ. Bind us to such ones by the cords of love, conviction, courage, Christ. And ask for Jonadab.

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O God, convict Jonadab. Convert Jonadab. God, please save Jonadab. Help us to save Jonadab.

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For we pray it in thy Son's name. The Lord bless you and keep you. The Lord make his face to shine upon you and be gracious unto you. The Lord lift up the light of his countenance upon you and give to you

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and to all those whom you love and to all those whom nobody loves his peace.