"The counsel of the LORD stands forever, the plans of his heart to all generations" (Psalms 33:11).
Everyone needs counsel. Yet, can you imagine something as strange as going to someone for advice and his piece of wisdom is - sleep with your father's concubines to overpower him! This is exactly the advice Ahithopel gave to the rebel son Absalom who was desperate for a battle win against his Dad. "Sleep with your father’s concubines whom he left to take care of the palace. Then all Israel will hear that you have made yourself obnoxious to your father, and the hands of everyone with you will be more resolute" (2 Samuel 16:21).
Absalom mad for victory went ahead and did just that! "So they set up a tent on the palace roof where everyone could see it, and Absalom went in and had sex with his father’s concubines" ( vv 22). Well, to take you ahead this was all for naught. For in the end Absalom was caught up in a battle which he lost and was executed by King David's General Joab.
Something of note here. Though Ahithopel was apparently a highly regarded counselor he had betrayed King David. During Absalom's revolt he deserted David and supported Absalom (2 Samuel 15:12). He was a man full of his ego that when his other advice to pursue David's troops in a rush was not taken up; he felt so insulted that he took his life (2 Samuel 17:23).
There is a simple lesson here. Whom do you seek counsel from? Here is a man whose heart was clearly far from God; but that's where Absalom sought advice. Sometime back King Saul also desperate for battle had sought advice from mediums. Saul then said to his advisers, “Find a woman who is a medium, so I can go and ask her what to do.” (1 Samuel 28:7). Well, just as happened to Absalom, of course he lost!
Be careful where you seek your advice from. In the case of Saul and Absalom they were desperate for victory and that blinded then from going to the right source. But the Lord says: "Many plans are in a man’s heart, But the counsel of the Lord will stand" (Proverbs 19:21)
Prayer today: Lord Father God of Abraham, maker of heaven and earth, today I come to you to seek the right counsel in all my plans, that you may lead me to victory, this I pray in Jesus’s name.
