I saw someone tweet a few days ago about The Rape of Tamar from 2 Samuel 13:1-22 namely, about how it illustrates how lust in our hearts actually works. Consequently it lead me to research (google) some sermons and commentary on the passage and same across these sermon notes from a messaged preached by a guy named Dr. Peter J. Wallace a PCA pastor out of Michigan. I took some of the more notable points he made dealing specifically with how deceptive and pervasive lust is as Amnon characterized his desires for as “love.” Equally as interesting, as many as of us can relate to, is how strong one’s feelings or desires for a particular person or thing can may initially and how easily they fade once we get what we want. The quick turn of emotions often leads us to make what was seemingly the object of our affections the object of our contempt and easily discarded especially it doesn’t payoff in the manner we had hoped. That’s how lust typically works, it exaggerates the worth of something to the point you cast off all restraint, ignore what you know is right, and do almost anything to obtain it. At the beginning you’re willing to pay the price for the big payoff it promises in return only to find it never satisfies and that strong feeling that seemed like it came from the depths of your being and was so persistent in actuality was fleeting and shallow. Certainly that isn’t how a desire rooted in “love” actually works. It isn’t perverse nor would it lead one to exploit and defile something for one’s own pleasure and satisfaction. Something to think about while reading over the passage and checking out the notes below. Be blessed.
1. The Rape of Tamar (13:1-22)
The outline of the rape of Tamar is pretty simple.
Amnon, David's firstborn, lusted after his beautiful half-sister.
Notice the verbs.
Amnon "loved" her.
He was obsessed with her.
And he wanted to "see" her (v5)
But seeing was not enough.
His cousin, Jonadab, suggested that he set a trap for Tamar.
Amnon followed Jonadab's advice and ensnared Tamar.
When she protested suggesting that David would give her in marriage to Amnon
(contrary to Leviticus 18)
Amnon raped her.
He would not listen to her, and so
he violated her (literally, humiliated her).
(It is likely that she was right.
David does not appear to have thought much about enforcing the law with his children!
The fact that he allowed Amnon to get away with rape,
and Absalom to get away with murder
suggests that she was right he would have allowed his son to marry his daughter!)
But after raping her, we are told that now Amnon hated Tamar
more than he loved her before
(revealing that his "love" was nothing more than lust).
Lust blinds us to the reality that the very thing that we desire has no future.
The moment you think rationally about the object of your lust,
you realize that there is no future there
there is only death.
But that doesn't help in the middle of the fit.
In the middle of the fit, nothing will satisfy except the object of our lust.
That is the way that sin works.
It is irrational, foolish, absolutely ridiculous if only you can see it for what it is.
But Amnon only sees it for what it is after the fact,
when he sends her away.
She replies, No, my brother, for this wrong in sending me away is greater than the other
that you did to me.
Some have tried to say that this tells us that Tamar truly loved Amnon.
I'm not convinced.
In the ancient near east,
the lack of virginity rendered a woman unacceptable as a wife.
Tamar realizes that having been violated,
her only chance for an honorable marriage is Amnon.
But he would not listen to her.
Again we are told in verse 16 as in verse 14
that Amnon's "love" is entirely self-absorbed.
Amnon starts his quest by opening his door to Tamar,
but it ends with his door locked behind her
sex is supposed to draw together husband and wife
in the greatest intimacy possible between two humans
but Amnon and Tamar end up with a locked door between them.
"...by the grace of God I am what I am..." - 1 Cor. 15:10
