Vanity, Power, And A Fall

What do we do when charm and charisma outshine character? We dive into the gripping story of Absalom—David’s favored son—whose beauty, ambition, and circle of flattering friends set the stage for betrayal, civil war, and a collapse that reads like a leadership manual in reverse. This isn’t just palace intrigue; it’s a timeless map of how unchecked ego, bad advice, and sentimental blindness can wreck a home, a team, or a nation.
The heart of this conversation is practical and personal. We talk about guarding against vanity with clear values, choosing advisers who tell hard truths, and loving with both warmth and boundaries. For parents and mentors, David’s dilemma is a caution: affection without accountability isn’t protection. For leaders, Absalom’s fall is a mirror: when identity rests on admiration, correction feels like an attack and wisdom gets sidelined. We close with steps to build character over image, seek counsel that challenges rather than flatters, and steady our decisions under pressure.

If this story pushed you to reflect on your circle, your motives, or your standards, share it with a friend, subscribe for weekday reflections, and leave a review to tell us the insight you’re taking forward.

Chapters

• 0:10 Welcome And Setup
• 0:34 From Unsung Heroes To The Privileged
• 1:11 Meet Absalom: Favored Yet Flawed
• 2:43 The Coup And Catastrophe
• 3:46 Three Lessons From Absalom And David
• 5:42 Closing Blessing And Sign-Off

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:10

Good morning and welcome to Starting Right. I am Danny Mack, and I'm going to be here every Monday to Friday to help you get a great start to your day. So grab your cup of coffee, sit back and relax for the next five minutes as I help you start your day by starting right. Over the last while, we have spent some time talking about the different characters there are in the Bible. We've talked about the ones who were unknown that did amazing things. We've talked about those who had absolutely no qualifications to be leaders or important, and God chose them and used them for significant purposes to lead the people. But we haven't touched yet on a group that was the privileged, the ruling class people. These are the people who, because of their birthright, were in a position to make a great difference in people's lives and for their countries. But in many of them there was no strength in their character, and so they wound up just messing it all up. One of these characters is a son of David. His name was Absalom. And we read most of his story in the book of Second Samuel. Now the story goes on for several chapters, so let me summarize it for you. But before I start, I just need to warn you this is a pretty sordid tale. There are all kinds of very repulsive things that occurred under David's watch in his own home amongst his own family. And yet God left this story in the Bible for a reason to teach us some things. Absalom was not David's oldest son, but he was David's favorite. His older brother was named Amnon, and he was the man that Absalom wound up killing, because Amnon had raped his sister. It was an ugly situation. This murder of Amnon caused the separation between David and Absalom, and over a few years though, David reconciled with his son and they got back together. Now along with many of his other negative qualities, Absalom was also incredibly vain. In fact he had this long flowing hair that he thought made him the most gorgeous man in the whole kingdom. In Second Samuel chapter fourteen, starting in verse twenty five, it says In all Israel there was not a man so highly praised for his handsome appearance as Absalom. From the top of his head to the sole of his foot there was no blemish in him. Whenever he cut the hair of his head, he used to cut his hair from time to time when it became too heavy for him. He would weigh it, and its weight was two hundred shekels by royal standard. Yes, he thought he was pretty hot stuff. Shortly after David and Absalom reconciled, Absalom decided that he wanted to be king, so he plotted to overthrow his father. David was so afraid of Absalom that he ran away and hid. Absalom found himself being more popular than his father, and he surrounded himself with so called advisers, but really they weren't very wise. They were Absalom's buddies from his partying days, and they gave him some very poor advice, one of them telling him to go after David and kill him now while he had the chance. So a war broke out between King David's men and Absalom's men. Now David had fewer men, but they were true warriors, they knew how to fight, and they were winning. In fact they killed over twenty thousand of Absalom's men. In Second Samuel chapter eighteen, Absalom is out in this battle and he is riding a mule when he goes underneath a tree, and his long, flowing, gorgeous hair gets caught in the tree. The mule goes out from under him and he's left hanging by his hair. He was found there by Joab, one of David's mighty men, who killed Absalom right then and there. Now there are some lessons we can learn from this story, and I'm going to give these to you very quickly this morning. First lesson is that Absalom let his conceit get the better of him. He actually was too greedy, and in a lot of ways David was too trusting. He loved his son so much he didn't see all of the evil things that were in his heart, and it cost David greatly. And even though Absalom looked good, very handsome, very charming, sometimes looks conceal a very murderous heart. Secondly, Absalom got bad advice from his advisors. He had gotten rid of the men who were guiding David in his life, with the exception of one who tried to protect David in the middle of all of this. But Absalom decided to listen to his new advisors, his buddies, his friends, those he hung out with. Their ideas and their wisdom were more important to him than the people who understood what it meant to function and act in the position that Absalom was now in. He got rid of the people he could trust to guide him and to help him, and he should not have. I want to give you one more. This is about King David. King David let his emotions get the better of him. As parents, we all want and expect the best from and for our children. There are many parents that refuse to believe that their child could ever misbehave in school or in youth group or in anything else. They simply refuse to believe anything could be wrong about their children. Their children are brilliant and perfect, no matter what. That kind of blindness can hurt us as it hurt David, but it also hurts the child. And we see that in how Absalom then took that and twisted it around to try and gain power for himself. David refused to see the ugliness there was in his son. We need to be honest with ourselves. We need to encourage truth from our kids. We need to expect the best from them, but we also need to be very much aware of what their weaknesses are, so that those weaknesses don't destroy them at some point in their lives. So there you have it. The story of one of the privileged and one of the ones who had opportunities in abundance to do great things, but they began to focus too much on themselves and let the selfishness ruin and destroy them. It is a sad story, but with some great lessons. I hope you all have a great day. Enjoy your family, share some love, say hi to somebody you haven't talked to for a while. Let God bless you and work through you. Have a great day. We'll talk again tomorrow. Thank you for listening today. And I invite you to join me Monday to Friday right here on Starting Right with Danny Mack.