“People to meet in heaven: Hushai the Archite”
II Samuel 16:15-19
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus.
Ever heard of Jeanne Vertefeuille (pronounced Verti-foy)? Probably not. And that’s the way she’d like it! After all, she worked as a spy for the CIA for 58 years!
She attended college at the University of Connecticut, where she majored in history and studied German and French. She never married, never had children, and was an only child.
And just as soon as she graduated in 1954, she worked as a secretary, typing the names of North Koreans scientists on note cards. Before long, her boss could tell she should be a spy. So she learned to speak Russian, then travelled overseas.
But there was a problem. From May through December of 1985, some eight different spies, working as American double agents, suddenly disappeared. And when spies disappear, that’s not good. That’s when she received a cable from her boss that said, “I want you to come back. And when you come back, I want you to work for me. I have a Soviet problem, and I want you to work on it.”
So for the next ten years, that’s exactly what she did. Where was the leak? Who betrayed those eight Soviet spies?
That’s when she discovered that one of their own, Aldrich Ames, was a mole. He’s the one who, for $4.5 million, betrayed those spies. How else could he have bought those brand, new Jaguars and a $500,000 home with cash?
When he was arrested in February of 1992, he pled guilty and was sentenced to federal prison for life.
And it was all because of Jeanne Vertefeuille, what Time Magazine called, “the little gray-haired lady who just wouldn’t quit.”
There are a lot of spies. Nathan Hale was a spy, the first American spy, back in 1775. Mata Hari was a spy back in the days of World War I. Some knew her by her “code name,” H-21. And Sydney Reilly, the model for James Bond 007, is known as, “The Ace of Spies.”
And in the words of our text today, there’s one of the very first spies of all, a man whose name was Hushai the Archite, a man we want to meet in heaven.
Please turn with me in your Bible to page 341 as I read the words of our text. I’ll start at chapter 16, verse 15: “Now Absalom and all the people, the men of Israel, came to Jerusalem, and Ahithophel with him. And when Hushai the Archite, David’s friend, came to Absalom, Hushai said to Absalom, ‘Long live the king! Long live the king!’ And Absalom said to Hushai, ‘Is this your loyalty to your friend?’ And Hushai said to Absalom, ‘No, for whom the Lord and this people and all the men of Israel have chosen, his I will be, and with him I will remain. And again, whom should I serve? Should it not be his son? As I have served your father, so I will serve you.’”
If you didn’t already know it, the Bible is a real book, full of real stories, about real people. And it tells of every human condition from the very best to the very worst. Want to read about liars, drunks, adulterers, murderers, cheats and thieves, about plots, schemes and political intrigue? Read the Bible. It’s all there.
So it is in the words of our text. It’s a story about a man named Absalom and how he wanted to steal the throne from his father, David.
Let’s step back for a moment to see what’s going on.
Just as soon as David killed Uriah and took his wife, Bathsheba, and just as soon as Nathan, the prophet, promised, “Now therefore the sword shall never depart from your house, because you have taken the wife of Uriah the Hittite to be your wife,” it was the beginning of the end. David’s life would never be the same.
And of all the troubles and heartaches that David would suffer, and there were many, none was worse than the betrayal of his own son, Absalom.
We don’t know exactly why he did it. Was it pride or arrogance? Was it simply because he hated his father David?
Whatever the reason, Absalom suddenly decided to steal his father’s throne. He rounded up an army, sounded a trumpet and sent messengers to declare, “Absalom is king at Hebron!”
That’s when David knew it was time to run for his life. And that’s why he said to his men in chapter 15: “Arise, and let us flee, or else there will be no escape for us from Absalom.”
Even one of David’s best advisors and friends, a man named Ahithophel, Bathsheba’s grandfather, turned on him and followed his son, Absalom, instead.
And when Absalom was ready to saddle up his horses and hunt down his father, David the king, Ahithophel said, in chapter 17: “’Let me choose twelve thousand men, and I will arise and pursue David tonight. I will come upon him while he is weary and discouraged and throw him into a panic, and all the people who are with him will flee. I will strike down only the king, and I will bring all the people back to you as a bride comes home to her husband. You seek the life of only one man, and all the people will be at peace.’ And the advice seemed right in the eyes of Absalom and all the elders of Israel.”
And his advice, if you don’t mind me saying, was right! David was on the run. He and his men were beaten down, tired, and hungry. And it would have been the best time, the absolute perfect time, to track him down and finish him off. David would be gone and Absalom could reign alone as king.
But that’s when, out of the blue, we meet a man named Hushai the Archite.
Who was he? We really don’t know. The Bible simply calls him, “David’s friend.” Apparently, he, along with that man named Ahithophel, had been advisors to the king. But while Ahithophel turned on him and followed Absalom, Hushai remained faithful to David the king.
But all this posed a problem. How could Hushai get through to Absalom and save the life of his friend, David the king?
That’s when it was time for a little trickery, a little deception. As even the CIA website says, Hushai was, “One of the first secret agents in human historical writing.”
Look again at chapter 16, verse 15: “Now Absalom and all the people, the men of Israel, came to Jerusalem, and Ahithophel with him. And when Hushai the Archite, David’s friend, came to Absalom, Hushai said to Absalom, ‘Long live the king! Long live the king!’ And 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, for whom the Lord and this people and all the men of Israel have chosen, his I will be, and with him I will remain. And again, whom should I serve? Should it not be his son? As I have served your father, so I will serve you.’”
In other words, Hushai said, “David? He’s history, old news. And there is no one greater, and no one more powerful, than Absalom the king!”
So far, so good.
What next? Well, Hushai tells him what to do. Look at chapter 17, verse 7: “Then Hushai said to Absalom, ‘This time the counsel that Ahithophel has given is not good.’ Hushai said, ‘You know that your father and his men are mighty men, and that they are enraged, like a bear robbed of her cubs in the field. Besides, your father is expert in war; he will not spend the night with the people. Behold, even now he has hidden himself in one of the pits or in some other place. And as soon as some of the people fall at the first attack, whoever hears it will say, “There has been a slaughter among the people who follow Absalom.” Then even the valiant man, whose heart is like the heart of a lion, will utterly melt with fear, for all Israel knows that your father is a mighty man, and that those who are with him are valiant men.’”
Then what happened? Absalom took the bait and believed him! And that gave David just enough to time to get away. It was all part of God’s plan.
It seems that the Bible is full of dark texts, things we find so hard to understand. Why did Pharaoh drown those baby boys in the Nile? Why did Job suffer? And why did Herod send soldiers to Bethlehem to take the life of Jesus, the newborn King?
And now here, Hushai the Archite becomes a secret agent and tricks Absalom, to save the life of David the king.
So why are the dark texts here?
They’re here to remind us that the only solution to our sinful human condition is the grace of God, a grace that scatters our fears and drives us into the arms of Christ.
That is, after all, what David wrote in the words of Psalm 3, a psalm he wrote, the Bible says, when he fled for his life from Absalom, his son. He said: “O Lord, how many are my foes! Many are rising against me; many are saying of my soul, ‘There is no salvation for him in God.’”
And he said: “But You, O Lord, are a shield about me, my glory, and the lifter of my head. I cried aloud to the Lord, and He answered me from His holy hill.”
It was 1845, and Irish born Joseph Scriven was 24 years old, in love, and about to be married. But the night before his wedding, as his fiancée crossed a bridge riding her horse, she fell into the water and drowned. Joseph could do nothing but watch helplessly from the other side.
To try to start life over again, he left Ireland and moved to Canada. And it was there that he became a school teacher and met another young woman named Eliza Roche, a relative of one of his students. They fell in love, but she died of pneumonia before they could marry.
Years later, as Scriven himself was sick in bed and about to die, a friend stumbled across a poem he had written for his mother years before.
This is what it said: “What a Friend we have in Jesus, all our sins and griefs to bear! What a privilege to carry everything to God in prayer! Oh, what peace we often forfeit, Oh, what needless pain we bear, all because we do not carry everything to God in prayer.”
We have a Savior, an amazing, loving Savior. And as we open our hearts to Him, and give Him the big things, the little things, and anything in between, He will hear and answer our prayer.
Dear Father, You once used a secret agent, Hushai the Archite, to save David’s life. Use us in our time and place, as we seek to do Your will. This we ask in Jesus’ name. Amen