Please turn in your Bibles to 2 Samuel chapter 24. We’ll be reading the whole chapter tonight. That’s on pew Bible page 277. And this is our last installment in our life of David series. And because we’re reading the whole chapter, I’d like for us to jump right in, but first, let’s pray and seek the help of the Lord.
Heavenly Father, we know that You dwell in unapproachable light, and Lord, by Your Spirit, by the work of Christ, we have access to the throne. And so Lord, we ask that You would give us Your Spirit tonight that we may see You and know You. It’s in the name of Jesus Christ we pray, amen.
Second Samuel chapter 24, starting in verse 1:
“Again the anger of the Lord was kindled against Israel, and he incited David against them, saying, ‘Go, number Israel and Judah.’ So the king said to Joab, the commander of the army, who was with him, ‘Go through all the tribes of Israel, from Dan to Beersheba, and number the people, that I may know the number of the people.’ But Joab said to the king, ‘May the Lord your God add to the people a hundred times as many as they are, while the eyes of my lord the king still see it, but why does my lord the king delight in this thing?’ But the king’s word prevailed against Joab and the commanders of the army. So Joab and the commanders of the army went out from the presence of the king to number the people of Israel. They crossed the Jordan and began from Aroer, and from the city that is in the middle of the valley, toward Gad and on to Jazer. Then they came to Gilead, and to Kadesh in the land of the Hittites; and they came to Dan, and from Dan they went around to Sidon, and came to the fortress of Tyre and to all the cities of the Hivites and Canaanites; and they went out to the Negeb of Judah at Beersheba. So when they had gone through all the land, they came to Jerusalem at the end of nine months and twenty days. And Joab gave the sum of the numbering of the people to the king: in Israel there were 800,000 valiant men who drew the sword, and the men of Judah were 500,000.
But David’s heart struck him after he had numbered the people. And David said to the Lord, ‘I have sinned greatly in what I have done. But now, O Lord, please take away the iniquity of your servant, for I have done very foolishly.’ And when David arose in the morning, the word of the Lord came to the prophet Gad, David’s seer, saying, ‘Go and say to David, ‘Thus says the Lord, Three things I offer you. Choose one of them, that I may do it to you.’’ So Gad came to David and told him, and said to him, ‘Shall three years of famine come to you in your land? Or will you flee three months before your foes while they pursue you? Or shall there be three days’ pestilence in your land? Now consider, and decide what answer I shall return to him who sent me.’ Then David said to Gad, ‘I am in great distress. Let us fall into the hand of the Lord, for his mercy is great; but let me not fall into the hand of man.’
So the Lord sent a pestilence on Israel from the morning until the appointed time. And there died of the people from Dan to Beersheba 70,000 men. And when the angel stretched out his hand toward Jerusalem to destroy it, the Lord relented from the calamity and said to the angel who was working destruction among the people, ‘It is enough; now stay your hand.’ And the angel of the Lord was by the threshing floor of Araunah the Jebusite. Then David spoke to the Lord when he saw the angel who was striking the people, and said, ‘Behold, I have sinned, and I have done wickedly. But these sheep, what have they done? Please let your hand be against me and against my father’s house.’
And Gad came that day to David and said to him, ‘Go up, raise an altar to the Lord on the threshing floor of Araunah the Jebusite.’ So David went up at Gad’s word, as the Lord commanded. And when Araunah looked down, he saw the king and his servants coming on toward him. And Araunah went out and paid homage to the king with his face to the ground. And Araunah said, ‘Why has my lord the king come to his servant?’ David said, ‘To buy the threshing floor from you, in order to build an altar to the Lord, that the plague may be averted from the people.’ Then Araunah said to David, ‘Let my lord the king take and offer up what seems good to him. Here are the oxen for the burnt offering and the threshing sledges and the yokes of the oxen for the wood. All this, O king, Araunah gives to the king.’ And Araunah said to the king, ‘May the Lord your God accept you.’ But the king said to Araunah, ‘No, but I will buy it from you for a price. I will not offer burnt offerings to the Lord my God that cost me nothing.’ So David bought the threshing floor and the oxen for fifty shekels of silver. And David built there an altar to the Lord and offered burnt offerings and peace offerings. So the Lord responded to the plea for the land, and the plague was averted from Israel.”
This is God’s Word.
Well this week was the week, and no, I’m not talking about news headlines or anything about the Olympics. On Monday, Shep had his first time to sleep without his pacifier, and we bought him this little stuffed football in preparation. Before he went to bed, I opened it and I asked him, “Do you want this?” And he said in his typical response, “Yeah.” And I said, “Okay, first you have to give me your pacifier.” He handed it over, went to sleep, and honestly he’s been a champion. He’s cried in the nights a little bit, but from the stories I’ve heard, we’ve had it pretty easy in the transition.
Now Shepherd, he’s a two-year-old, he does not really understand that interaction with him. He just knew that he wanted the stuffed football more than he wanted his pacifier in the moment. But from our perspective, from the advice we’ve heard from other parents, from reading, this was the time to do it – right after he turns two, before he gets too attached. And so we did that. We had his best interest in mind. We hopefully have a good handle on what’s best for him at this stage of his life. All parenting advice is accepted!
But we see something similar in this story in God’s relation to David tonight because God has a perfect grip on His people and we need to come to understand that perfect grip that God has on His people. And so we’ll look at the passage under three headings – the wonder of God’s ways, the wisdom of God’s plan, and last, the worship of God’s servant.
So first in verses 1 through 9, the wonder of God’s ways. We get a theological haymaker right off the bat in verse 1, don’t we? How many of you, when you read verse 1, paused for a second. Look at it with me. “Again the anger of the Lord was kindled against Israel, and he incited David against them, saying, ‘Go, number Israel and Judah.’” I look at that verse with the rest of the passage and immediately a few questions come to mind. And this may not be the first one that comes to your mind, but let’s answer this one first. What was David’s sin in the first place? God had called for His people to be numbered on multiple occasions in Scripture, so what’s wrong with it here? Well the short answer is that we don’t really know. Surely it’s not inherently sinful to number the people of Israel. Based on Exodus 30, some might say that David neglected to take up some money for a sacrifice that’s required in a census, but other theologians say that may have been a one time thing in Exodus. Other theologians think David was preparing for some type of military conquest in a sinful way, a war that God had not called for. But I tend to side with those who say that it had to do, it was sinful, it had to do with his prideful motivations. He was puffed up with pride with his kingdom.
We get a couple little clues in verse 3. Look at what Joab says. “May the Lord your God add to the people a hundred times as many as they are, while the eyes of my lord the king still see it, but why does my lord the king delight in this thing?” You see, apparently Joab sees something in David – maybe a prideful desire to be a king of many more than he was, a desire for power and prestige, and Joab asks, “Why are you delighted in numbering the people?” maybe perceiving a misplaced sense of delight. But at the end of the day, this isn’t the most important question to answer in this first section because the text doesn’t really say what exactly the sin was, and so it shouldn’t be our main concern. We know from verse 10 David clearly sees it as sin and God agrees because He judges it as such, and that should be good enough for us.
And so let’s move to the next couple of questions. Go back to verse 1. What does it mean that “God incited David against them”? What makes that statement even more perplexing in the parallel verse in 1 Chronicles 21, it says that “Satan incited David to number Israel.” The exact same word. And then, there’s this other question of why God’s anger was kindled against Israel and so He uses David’s sin as a vehicle for their judgment. We don’t know why He was angry with Israel either. Maybe because they had rejected David for Absalom and Sheba, but we don’t know. But we can say a few things about this straight from Scripture. Ephesians 1 – God works all things according to the counsel of His will. Or, our confession puts it this way – God foreordains whatsoever comes to pass. We don’t serve a God who is powerless to affect His will on the world. Rather, He is accomplishing His will, and whatever happens is a consequence of that decreed will. Scripture also says that He Himself tempts no one. He can’t tempt anyone. In Him there is no darkness at all. Like Joseph says to his brothers when he is sold into slavery, “You meant it for evil, but God meant it for God.” He meant for it to happen.
And I want to ask – Do you have that perspective? Have you thought through the implications of that understanding of reality, that God means for whatever happens to happen. Whatever happens in the world, God means for it to happen. God meant for the fall to happen. God meant for David to sin here. He was not the author of it, He isn’t culpable for it, but He meant it and He meant it for a good purpose. He stepped back and allowed Satan to do his thing, to tempt David. But don’t think for a second that God wasn’t in control with a full knowledge of how this was going to play out. God tests His people. He hardens pharaoh’s heart. He delivers Christ, His Son, into the hands of His enemies. He gives people over to their sins. Romans 1, He chooses some to be saved; He passes over others. He has compassion on whom He will have compassion, Romans 9. It’s the question people have been asking forever, “How could a loving God allow such things? How could a loving God operate this way?” And while we can affirm those things from Scripture, we don’t exactly understand it. We don’t exactly know. Scripture says His ways are higher than our ways, His thoughts are higher than our thoughts. We can only understand Him in so far as He has condescended to us and revealed Himself in the Bible and in Jesus Christ.
And it’s not just a question of revelation, of what He’s revealed to us. How can a limited creature understand an infinite God? We may not have the capacity to understand all of this. That’s essentially the answer that Job gets at the end of the book of Job with all his suffering. God has every little variable under His all powerful plan, so who is Job to question it? Paul’s question in Romans 9, “Why does God still find fault for who can resist His will?” And what’s the response? “Who are you, O man, to answer back to God?” You see, Christianity is not about wrapping your mind around every little detail so you can put your religion in your lunchbox and take it to work. People will say, “Well I can’t believe in that kind of God. I can’t trust that kind of God.” But do you hear the pride in that statement, the pride that says, “If I can’t understand all of it then I can’t trust it.” You can’t? You can’t believe in that God? You must believe in that God because He is the only living God! Christianity is about humbling yourself before the One whose ways are wonderful, whose ways are beyond my understanding, and like Peter responds to Jesus, we say, “Lord, where else will we go? To whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life.” There is no other place to go. All other roads lead to death and judgment.
And you know, it’s interesting to me, but I know David understood this because he wrote one of my favorite psalms – Psalm 131. “O Lord, my heart is not lifted up. My eyes are not raised too high. I do not occupy myself with things too great and marvelous for me, but I have calmed and quieted my soul like a weaned child with its mother.” We must become like children who, like a child weaning, switching to real food, learns to trust its mother that it will be fed. The mother knows it’s best for the child to go through the weaning process, but the child can’t understand all that. The child is simply hungry and wondering why. Our heavenly Father knows what’s best. In the world out there, in your life here tonight, and He’s working “all things together for the good of those who are called according to His purpose” – for you if you have faith in Him. That’s the wonder of God’s ways. Do you trust Him with the dreadful realities of sin and suffering in the world? We must come to understand that God has this grip on His people and we see it ever so dimly in His revealing to us the wonder of His ways. Why does He do it this way? We don’t know, but He does it for good.
So secondly, let’s look at the wisdom of God’s plan. This is verses 10 through 17. Did you notice in this section, verses 10 through 17, how God was working on David? Look at verse 10. David’s heart stuck him and he said, “I have sinned greatly in what I have done. Please, take away my iniquity.” We see David convicted and repentant, turning to God for forgiveness. This is the right response when we see our sin. Like Charlie said last week, owning it. We should want to be a heart-stricken people who turn to the Lord in our iniquity. It’s when we become dull. It’s when we become callous to our sin that we get into trouble.
But that conviction doesn’t remove the consequences of his sin, does it? Through the prophet Gad, God mercifully gives David some options. He can choose three years of famine, three months of fleeing from his enemies, or three days of pestilence. Which one would you choose? They all sound pretty bad to me, but look at how David decides in verse 14. “Then David said to Gad, ‘I am in great distress. Let us fall into the hand of the Lord, for his mercy is great; but let me not fall into the hand of man.’” You see, David knows his God. He knows the mercy of God. We saw it last week as God was merciful to him even in the midst of sins including murder and adultery. David knows the mercy of his God and he banks on it. He puts his hope in it. He takes shelter under it.
A couple of years ago I was walking through the hallway over by Wiley’s office and I was holding this pamphlet in my hand called, “Behind a Frowning Providence.” It’s a little pamphlet by John Murray. And Wiley was passing and he asked what it was and I told him that I often give these pamphlets – he was familiar with it, but I told him I often give these pamphlets to our students when they are going through difficult circumstances because it beautifully explains the Biblical doctrine of suffering. Looking to the promises and character of God in the midst of it. You know the line, you’ve probably heard it here, you’ve sung it in the hymn – “Behind a frowning providence He hides a smiling face.” But I remember that interaction with Wiley because he made this passing comment about it. He said, “You know it’d be better if they had that pamphlet before.” And he’s exactly right. He was saying it would be better if when they came into distress, when they came into difficult circumstances if they understood these truths about God and providence before so that they could deal with their trials, equipped. That’s what we see from David here. He has a faith that says men may not be merciful, but I know what God is like. I know He will be, for His mercy is great, is what he says.
Turns out he’s right. God relents at the appointed time. Many commentators think that this was before the evening sacrifice this day which would mean that the pestilence and judgment that he chose, of three days, lasted about nine hours. Joab took nine months to count everyone up. He wasn’t happy about it if you look at 1 Chronicles 21, and the judgment for the sin was only nine hours, resulting in 70,000 men dying. It seems like a severe judgment, but it could have been much worse. One theologian said this, “See how easily God can bring down the proudest sinners and how much we owe daily to the divine patience.” How much do you owe daily to the divine patience? For me it’s a lot. And in that parallel passage, God opens David’s eyes to see this angel of judgment carrying a sword of fire and he is afraid. And look at verse 17. David owns it again. “Behold, I have sinned, and I have done wickedly. But these sheep, what have they done? Please let your hand be against me and against my father’s house.”
But the main thing I want you to notice in this section – Do you see the progression? Do you see the growth in David’s life? At the beginning of the chapter he has a heart full of some kind of sinful pride. God tests him, God allows Satan to tempt him, God pulls back for a moment to show David what is in his heart. And in verse 10, He shows David the reality of that sin. In His method of judgment and discipline, He causes David to consider the character of God, to dwell on His mercy, and as he sees that awful judgment unfold, he shows himself to be someone whose heart has turned from pride to love. His heart has turned outward. He is no longer thinking in terms of himself but he’s thinking as a king over his people who calls for judgment to be on him instead of them. He goes from self centered to Christ-like, with the important difference being that David deserves the punishment. Do you see the wisdom of God’s plan? How it changed David? How it grew him?
My head football coach in high school, Coach Merrell, he was a brilliant coach I would say, and there was this moment in practice that I’ve thought back on again and again because it was so unexpected to me. It was so out of the ordinary. We were running this little bubble screen play which basically means that I was supposed to take a jab step forward and turn immediately and get the ball and run up the field with a couple of receivers blocking. Easiest pass to catch in all of practice, and I dropped it. And I remember looking back to see the look on my head coach’s face. He was unfazed. He had his usual mean look, which I don’t know if that’s a requirement to be a high school football coach, but he was just spitting his sunflower seeds into the grass!
And our quarterback went to him to get the next play, we got in the huddle, ran the play – I was supposed to run this deep crossing route over the middle of the field, the quarterback threw it my way, I jumped over the defender, caught it, touchdown. And as I was jogging back to the huddle, I hear my coach screaming at me. And at first I thought he was congratulating me – “Job well done! Great practice play!” But no. He said, “Biggs! You can catch that but you can’t catch a screen pass? We are not going to beat Millwood if we can’t focus on the little details! This is a focus issue!” And on and on! That’s a generous paraphrase, but you get the idea! I don’t have a lot of vivid memories of football practice but I won’t forget that one because he waited to get at the issue. He called a play that he knew would get my focus. You see, he had this wise plan that caused me to actually dwell on it. “What’s the problem here?”
God is not so different with us, is He? Though we may not understand or even be able to understand why He governs creation in the way He does, we know His plans are wise. We know He is good. We know He is merciful. And the Christian life involves Him working on His people, shaping us to know ourselves and our sinfulness, to know Him and who He is and to lean into His grace and mercy in becoming more like Christ. You see, God is not a parent who trains up His children to be independent of Him. He is a wise, heavenly Father who grows us up to know our need of Him, weeding out our little rebellions against Him, making us useful to His purpose. Think on your own life. Can you see His wisdom in His plans for you? In what ways is He exposing your sin? Gut response when we see it is to flee. The right response is to lean into His mercy.
We must come to understand God’s grip on His people and the wonder of His ways and the wisdom of His plan, and finally, in the worship of His servant. Look at verse 18 with me. David intends to build an altar as God commanded, and because God is just, in the midst of this mercy there must be sacrifice. There has to be atonement. Look at his interaction with Araunah. He offers the land, anything else that is needed for the sacrifice. Verse 24, “But the king said to Araunah, ‘No, but I will buy it from you for a price. I will not offer burnt offerings to the Lord my God that cost me nothing.’” That statement from David is instructive for us because repentance is not something that is cheap and easy for us. It’s hard work. Jesus says to count the cost of being a disciple, to count the cost of following Him. Here in 2 Samuel for David, that’s a financial cost. I think about our teenagers in the church and how often for them that cost, and probably many of y’all, that cost is one of reputation with the world, when you take a real stand on following Christ. And related to this is the type of offerings you see in verse 25 – whole burnt offerings and peace offerings. Vern Poythress, in his book, The Shadow of Christ in the Law of Moses, which I would commend to you all, says we need to be careful not to separate the different types of offerings from one another but look at them by way of emphasis. So the sin and guilt offerings emphasize the fact that sin must be punished. The peace and fellowship offerings emphasize peace with God and a communion meal with Him and His special blessing. And the whole burnt offering that’s listed here was the only one to be entirely consumed, entirely burned up. The animal in place of the worshiper. Where God’s servant should have been entirely destroyed as a penalty for sin, the animal takes his place. Death for the animal means a new sort of life, a resurrection for the believer; a life that is wholly dedicated to God. A life of worship.
That’s the exact idea of Romans 12:1. “I appeal to you, therefore, brothers by the mercies of God to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship.” A life of love and sacrifice for God is the only response that David is okay with. But if God is going to stay His hand, His justice has to be satisfied another way. You see in verse 25 the plague was averted from Israel. Averted, but God’s justice wasn’t satisfied. “It’s impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sin,” the writer of Hebrews says. In the person and work of Jesus Christ, God provides the altar. On the cross, His justice was satisfied. He was wholly consecrated to God. The only way that way escape the flaming sword of the judgment angel who stands between heaven and earth is by grace through faith in the sacrifice provided by Jesus Christ. Does Jesus Christ, the Altar, turn you to worship?
Many of you will remember a few years ago when L.K.’s dad, my father-in-law, passed away unexpectedly. He was supposedly in good health, had just been to the doctor, and either had a massive heart attack or a brain aneurysm. We don’t know. And I’m so thankful for the many of you that comforted us during that time. And I talked about this at his funeral, but before he died he had become so spiritually interested. We got done playing golf one day, L.K. and I had been married for a few years and it was just him and me in his truck and he asked me, “Stephen, what does it mean to finish life well.” To finish life well. He said, “I was reading that R.C. Sproul book you gave me and he talked about finishing life well. What does that mean – to finish life well as a Christian?” And I explained what I thought that meant. I sent him an article later. And not six months later he was gone. And I think about all the variables that God had in His control – how L.K. and I got married, how I was in seminary, how he was asking me all these questions. You know, L.K. and I have cried and wondered and questioned the wisdom of the timing, but here’s what we know – God had him in His grip. His question to me was a question of repentance. He was turned to new obedience – “How can I serve God now?”
And I was reminded of that this week as I was reading Matthew Henry who said of this chapter, “The last words of David which we read in the chapter before were admirably good, but in this chapter we read some of his last works, which were none of the best. Yet, he repented and did his first works again, and so he finished well.” He repented and so he finished well. You know, people may get bent out of shape about how God works, about the wonder of His ways, and we should meet them in that. How could He allow this suffering? And yet we know He has purpose in it. I’m thankful that He causes His people to repent in faith. In the next chapters, David turns over his kingdom to Solomon and passes away. We made this contrast early on in the series of David and Saul and it’s fitting we end with a similar contrast. A difference between David and Saul we said early on was that David had the Spirit and Saul did not. A difference was not that they sinned, it’s that David took his sin to the altar. He hid under the shadow of God’s wing. He hid in God’s mercy.
Where is your heart right now? Will you take your sin to the Altar of Jesus Christ? Let’s pray.
Lord, without You we are lost. We ask that You would lift up Your countenance upon us. Lord, give us the light of Christ by Your Spirit that we may come back to You. Cause us in Your wisdom to see and turn from our sin and to Your wonderful ways, to Your wisdom, Lord to worship. It’s in the name of Jesus Christ we pray, amen.