2 Samuel 24 David's sinful census

[Music] I'd like you to go to the book of second Samuel chapter 24 second Samuel 24 this is the last of these books what we've been going through verse by verse 2nd Samuel 24 the culmination of the reign of King David it says at 24 of second Samuel verse 1 again the anger of the Lord was kindled against Israel and he moved David against them to say go number Israel thank you the host from Dan to Beersheba and number you the people that I may know the number of the people we it's this is a huge huge thing this might be just as big as David's sin with Bathsheba the census and that census brought a judgment on Israel in the Book of Chronicles now let me read how that reads is in 1st chronicles chapter 21 very same episode only from a different vantage point 1st chronicles 21 and the way it looks it's very very confusing for some verse 1 Satan stood up against Israel and provoked David to number Israel so in Samuel it's God that's against Israel now there are censuses in the Bible but the point about the synthesis in the Bible is that can only be called by God you can't the thinking is Kaiser shepherds and you can't count for yourself what isn't yours the children of Israel are not David David is a hired Shepherd God is the shepherd like David said the Lord is my shepherd so therefore there's only one way you can do a census and that is if God told you to do the sentence census now God told Moses to do censuses two of them and there's a law about censuses in when God calls the census then part of this number is that each one to be charged a half shekel to redeem their souls okay they belong to God and they have to acknowledge that they've been purchased by God by paying a half shekel tax but this is totally different this is King David at the prime of his life at the height of his career having been one many many glorious victories and feeling full of himself and doing what any powerful successful person is tempted to do you know he wants to know how powerful he really is he wants to know militarily how strong he is economically how strong he is he wants to know where he's at by virtue of statistics numbers people and Counting the problem with censuses only God could call a census of his people because the people belong to God they don't belong to David David was full of himself at the flush of his victory and like many people who've been given victories by God that's the most tempting time not when you're in trouble but when you're on top of the game and that he was premier I mean he had possessed all the land he had subdued all the pagan tribes he had been given victory after victory after victory after victory and at that point this worldly idea came in so like it does with so many of us when we're on top of it man I wonder how much I have wonder what power I have I want to wear ice time in with the standing with all the other kings I wonder how much military power I have the King said the joah of the cabin of the host which was whipped own house all the tribes of Israel from Dan even number you the people that I mean no number of the people Joab captain the host verse three said to the king the other LORD thy God God Allen to the people how many so whatever they be a hundredfold and that the eyes of my lord the king may see it but why do my lord the King delight this thing there's his warning it's cuz sometimes warming's come from unexpected places Jove is not a prophet job is not a holy man ladies just king I pray to God we have a hundred more than you even want but why do you do those delight in this what is it you're looking for here and notwithstanding the Kings word prevailed against Johanna the jibes warning went unheeded and against the captains of the host so evidently they remonstrate it and Javid the captains of the host went out from the presence of the king to number the people of Israel and they passed over the Jordan and pitched in error on the right side of the city that lies in the midst of the river of God and toward jeiza and they came to Gilead and to the land of Tom kampachi and they came to dannion and about to Zidan so they went over into Jordan what we call Jordan today all the way up to Lebanon so when they've gone through all the land they came to Jerusalem at the end of nine months and 20 days took him nine months to do the census and Judah gave up the sum of the number of the people under the king and there were in Israel eight hundred thousand valiant men that drew the sword and the men of Judah were five thousand men this is a military census counting fighting men and David had the rule over 1 million three hundred thousand men now that in the ancient world would be impressive a million three hundred thousand fighting men someone tries to warn you you just push it beside you want it you want it you do it cuz you want it and then when you do it Dredd loves it because you know you did the wrong thing and they wouldn't King David's heart motive after he numbered the people and David said unto the Lord I've sinned greatly in that I've done and now I beseech thee O Lord take away the iniquity of thy servant I've done very foolishly be humbly confessed a serious serious sin now let me talk a little bit about more about this okay he delighted he wanted to know it had nothing to do with what God was telling him to do it was God that removed his hand of any King even a god-centered King it's still gonna have humanistic temptations and I'm gonna read just a brief passage from the law of the Kings and Deuteronomy 17 to give you an idea of why this was wrong what was wrong with this what was such a serious thing that as soon as David did it his heart smote him and he trembled and he knew he'd done something very very serious Deuteronomy 17 verse 14 he said when you come into the land my God gives you and shall possess it and shall dwell therein and shall say I will set a king over me like as all the nations that are about me thou shalt in any wise set him king over thee whom the LORD thy God shall choose one from among thy brethren shall offset a king over the bow man's not a set of stranger over the you nuts what's have a foreigner which is not thy brother but he shall not multiply horses to himself nor shall he caused the people to return to Egypt to the end that he would multiply horses for as much as the Lord and said unto thee you henceforth return no more that way now there shall he multiply wives to himself that it's hard to not turn away now officially multiplied to himself silver and gold a lot of the basically summed up like this I don't want you to be worldly I don't want you to trust in the things that we can't trust in I want you to be a king dependent upon your God that by the way horses they didn't go to war with horses Gentiles did not the Jews with Saul and David went about one foot in solid case it was on foot with sharpened sticks they were afraid they didn't have to trust the Lord David was on foot they were facing Iron Age armies that had chariots but they were on foot they would multiply wives for political reasons and one of the things that I think is interesting that he did is that he commanded every King to begin their reign by writing out with their own hand the Torah of God the first five books of the Bible there's something about that kind of interaction with Scripture that really gets it into you makes you think very heavily and that's what the Kings would do okay so David did that no doubt but here he is powerful successful and high on what he mistakenly considered this his success and so it's his pride that leads him to do this census and as soon as he began he knew that he does something very very very serious and he humbly is one of the great humble confessions of sin in the whole Bible though it says verse 11 for when David was up in the morning the next morning the word of the Lord came unto the Prophet Dada David's seer saying God sated a said the Lord I offer thee three things choose the one of them that I may do it unto thee okay so even forgiving because God is a forgiving God David is forgiving God forgives and then there's a sense in which David is the son of God okay because God said to David that I will make you and your children like my sons and part of being a son of God is you're under God's discipline like no one else so because we're sons of God were disciplined by God in fact the New Testament says one of the signs that you're not a son of God is if you never get disciplined by God that statement is the sign of the love of God so the next morning the Prophet GAD came to David and he gave David a deal that no one no one else gets in the Bible I've never seen it anywhere else I'll give you three choices on your punishment this is incredible right you choose whichever one you want and I offer you three things choose me one of them that I may do it to you so GAD came to David and told him and said unto him you'll either get seven years of famine come to the IND island or will you flee for three months from your enemies while they pursue you or should we just do it three days a pestilence comes to land so seven years three months or three days but any one of them I would want right and seven years of famine well you never know how many people will die I mean in those days I mean a famine is a serious thing I mean people could die the hundreds of thousands well three months being chased by your enemies David spent 13 years being chased by his enemies he knows what it means to be chased by his enemies only he's old now but not as old he wasn't 70 but it was later on in his reign he he didn't even want to spend three months being chased by his enemies he didn't want to go through that he'd been chased by his own son he'd been chasing an insurrection he'd been chased by his father saw who chased him all over the wilderness though he says I'll take three days of pestilence and put and basically his thinking is that's putting myself in the hands of a merciful God three days of pencil see cuz there is forgiveness of sins anyone that sins and ask God will be forgiven that doesn't mean there's not consequences the consequences have to come see and this and and if you remember the way this chapter began this wasn't God just punishing David God wanted to bring a judgment on Israel of whom David was representative I don't know what it was maybe is because the civil war or something but there was a judgement do Israel so he used David to bring it by this census so he says in verse 14 David said unto God I'm gonna grade straight let's fall now into the hand of the Lord for His mercies are great and let me not fall into the hand of man so the Lord sent a pestilence upon Israel from the morning even to the time appointed and there died of the people from Dan even to Beersheba 70,000 remember David's original instruction you go from Dan to Beersheba and count all the fighting men so this is kind of a railing the pestilence went from Dan to Beersheba the furthest north of the further south and 70,000 men died and that pestilence he should have listened to Joab shouldn't he he should have listened to his general but he didn't verse 16 when the Angels stretched out his hand upon Jerusalem to destroy it so this judgment has two parts a pestilence on Israel and the daughter destruction of Jerusalem David saw the angel of the Lord so did some of his people they saw the angel lift his sword angels are powerful there's an angel story in the Bible that says one angel attacked Sennacherib a pagan king that was mocking God and 185 thousand people died that night one angel David looks up and sees the angel of the Lord while he's fasting and praying and crying and repenting and he stretches his hand upon Jerusalem to destroy it but just then with his hand stretched out the Lord changed his mind as the Lord is good the Lord doesn't have to change his mind everything he thinks is right everything he thinks is true so in what sense does the Lord change his mind as backtick the Prophet said he prayed even in judgment show mercy so Jerusalem is about to be wiped out and then the Lord intervenes now what does that remind you of that's the end of the world Jerusalem's about to be wiped out and it has a lot to do with the worldliness of Israel but then the Lord intervenes he says the angel stretched his hand upon Jerusalem to destroy it but the Lord repented him of the evil and said to the angel that destroyed the people it's enough now stop your hand and the angel of the Lord was buy the threshing place of our you are the Jebusite now let me just walk through this and unpack it see this this reminds us of another earlier story in the Bible in Genesis where a hand is stretched out to kill and the Lord stops the hand does anyone remember that story Abraham and his son Isaac and guess what that story took place at the very geographical location that this story took place on Mount Moriah that Abraham is just getting ready because he's gonna obey the Lord he's got his knife in his hand Isaac is so willing he sits there obediently waiting he's not ten years old he's thirty and he's bound himself Abraham he allows Abraham to find him hand and foot he sits on the altar waiting to be sacrificed it was just all ready to go like that I said stop your hand stop it right there on the mountain and so Abraham stopped and God said look over there in the bushes and what did he see a ram with his horns caught in the thorns in other words his head is surrounded by thorns does that sound familiar and God says there's your substitute there's your sacrifice and then he said in this mountain that should be seen in this mountain it should be seen what the sacrifice the substitute now we come back to this story Israel has sinned King David has sinned and it's a serious sin and judgment is coming because the wages of sin is death but the angel has his hands stretched out he's about ready to wipe out Jerusalem and both the same thing same mountain same God stop it stop it and it happened to be that the place where the plague would stop it's the threshing floor of are you on of the GMB site okay now first of all a threshing floor what is the threshing floor a threshing floor is a flat piece of hard ground where they would take their harvested grain but they just cut off the stalks of the grain and they pile it on that thing and they'd beat it with threshing sticks or they'd have oxen walk over it and they would try to it's a place of separation where the grain gets separated from the stock and then the grain gets separated from the shaft around the grain so a threshing floor is a place of separation all right where the cheap and the worthless is separated from the precious and you see as metaphor all through the Bible even John the Baptist he said of Jesus his fan is in his hand he's gonna cleanse his threshing floor he's gonna separate the wheat from the chaff the wheat he's gonna put in his barn but the chef he's gonna burn with eternal fire so there's a huge separation here and the play ends right on the threshing floor of a fellow named are you on ax now are you wanna is not a Jew he's a Gentile in fact he is not even a private person he happens to be the former lord of Jeb usse which was the pagan city which became Jerusalem and he had that threshing floor he's out there with his sons threshing when the plague stop and he's the defeated lord of the city and what happens next okay it says in verse 17 David spake unto the Lord when he saw the angel that smote the people and said love his conviction is hitting him I've said not this people I said he said and I have done wickedly but these sheep where are they done let your hand I pray thee be against me and against my father's house now now this is what this is growth because if you remember the rebellion of Absalom David didn't really care that much about his own people he cared about Absalom remember Joab is to say you better go out there and act like you care you're gonna have a rebellion like you never saw before okay but David has grown pain has brought him more in conformity to the Lord Jesus he's more of a shepherd now and he prays this heartfelt prayer why don't you just put this plague on me and spare these sheep I'm the one that this let your hand I pray thee be against me verse 18 and God came that day to David and he said unto him go up rear an altar to the Lord in the threshing floor of Araunah the Jebusite there's where I want you to build an altar well you can't just go build an altar at the threshing floor because he observes private property then thou shalt not steal so in order to fulfill that commandment verse 19 David according to the saying of GAD went up as the LORD commanded and are you Donna looked and saw the king and his servants coming on toward him and all you want to went out and bound himself before the king on his face on the ground the last Lord of the pagans gets on his face in acknowledgment and obeisance to David the king okay and it says that Arianna said why is my lord the King come to a servant and David said I come to buy the threshing floor of thee to build an altar to the Lord that the plague may be stayed from the people I want to buy your threshing floor and stop this plague now this two connects us back to Genesis Abraham's father Abraham would David's father Abraham who in that same place surrounded by pagans this is the real beginning of the Exodus he'd been promised that land but he wasn't told to go in with an army and take it their sin wasn't yet full surrounded by pagans but his witness was so strong the pagans respected him and when his wife died he said to one of the kings of the pagans I want to buy a burial place for my wife now the pagans said back to him we respect you so much your money's no good with me I'm just gonna give you that burial place but damn Abraham would not accept that burial place for free he bought it and that real estate transaction is recorded in the Bible you ever wonder why something's are in the Bible what do we care about a real estate transaction 3,000 years ago or 4,000 years but it is it's in Genesis 23 is a real estate transaction between Abraham and pagan and he set up he bought a cave for the burial of his family and to this day in the Holy Land the tomb of Abraham Isaac Jacob Sarah Rebecca Leia it still exists holy place okay but there is a signed sealed and delivered transaction in the Bible he didn't take it he bought it now one of the reasons I think but that's there because 4000 years ago God knew that in the last days one of the major controversies gripping the world it will consume the UN the Jews came in and just ripped us off and took the land and didn't pay for it and slaughtered the people and that very site I know people out of my repetition but I it's relevant the tomb of Abraham Isaac Jacob Sarah Rebecca Leah it still exists to this day it's a testimony to Genesis 23 and there's a group in the UN thank God from just pulled us out of it not in the best go don't you that's go yeah you're you got it you got UNESCO UNESCO United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization you just pronounced that tomb that it has nothing to do with the Jews it belongs to the Moslems because it's a Muslim shrine this is nuts when I hear Abraham Isaac Jacob Sarah Rivka Rebecca Leia I think the Jews don't you but the UNESCO says no Moslems you ripped it off they have to give it back this is one of the major controversies in the world by the way you notice who's missing from that tomb anyone know which wife is missing it's Jacob's favorite wife I mean when you got four you gotta have a favorite right Rachel he loves Rachel but Rachel died in childbirth outside of Bethlehem so they constructed a tomb for her and it still exists to this day rachel's tomb only unesco just pronounced that that's a anyway back to our story okay this this threshing floor is a very same place that Abraham offered Isaac exact same place and it's the foot and and this is t really what this is is this is the end of the exodus right here this is it this is how the exodus ends it ends the way it began it began with the real estate transaction ends with the real late real estate transaction doesn't end with blood death and murder it ends with pagans being converted and saying to Abram and the son of Abram David hey you don't you your money's no good with me I'll give it to you and both of them say no let me pay for it and insisting and this transaction - is in the Holy Writ God wanted to put this real estate trends in the Holy Writ okay because really what this is is the last pagan bowing down in the holy land to the Jews and admitting and this is the last possession of holy land and it's fitting there's King David and furthermore what this is is ultimately a hopeful sign though the conversion of Gentiles but also it's a Testament that speaks all the way to today see because what that threshing floor which is this is fitting two threshing floor is a place of separation you could say it's a place of judgment okay the Bible the prophets talked about he's going to Thresh the nation's man and huge Israel are my threshing instrument what is threshing separating the wheat from the chaff separating the wheat from the straw the first song is about threshing blessed is the man that will not walk in the counsel of the ungodly or stand the way of sinners or sit in the seat of the scornful his delight is in the law of the Lord and in his law as you meditate and then at the end it says the wicked are like the shafts one day that's coming to judgment and the wicked again go one way in this the weed is going to go another and so the exodus ends on a threshing floor but the threshing floor becomes a site or the temple which David could build I suppose you could say the temple of God was like a threshing floor there was where God was there's where sinners could come and get separated from their sin be dealt with by the Lord attend the thousands and thousands of divine services and hear the blessings and hear the pronouncement of forgiveness and the smell of sacrifice and the incense of worship and so this is how we get the Temple Mount David wasn't allowed to build a temple remember he said I want to build God a house I build myself a house of cedar I want to build a house for God and Nathan the Prophet said go for a David sounds right but that night the Lord spoke Nathan and said you go tell David he can't build my house he's too bloody but I'm going to build a house through him by the way that very threshing floor is the most sensitive piece of real estate on earth you would know it instantly because anytime in the news you see Jerusalem you see a big golden dome of an abomination that makes the whole thing desolate a mosque of Omar and the Dome of the rock well that rock is the rock where Abraham offered Isaac well you know what they say about it that's where Abraham offered Ishmael and of a different said that and anything that happens on that threshing floor to this day at any moment would become the spark it turns about brings about the Armageddon decision oh it is so heavy now Moslems control it now this is part of the judgment of God on Israel it's their holiest site it's mentioned 800 times in the Bible right Jerusalem is an 800 times the Bible the temple and Mount Zion 800 times the Bible and never once in the Koran never once but Islam has claimed it as their third holiest site so therefore they get the custody of it because this whole world's anti God now I remember 1967 when a Moshe Dayan in the six-day war and the paratroopers took the Temple Mount and for the first time in history for 2,000 years the Jews could actually think maybe this year we'll be in Jerusalem we got our holiest site back but then within days Moshe Dayan who by the way was it you but he was an atheist that was gold oh my err he turned it right back to the Muslims now that was a long time ago but I still remember wondering why I didn't know much but I knew that what but then I read a verse of Jesus it answered the question Jesus talking about this very threshing floor without Maya and Jerusalem must be trodden under foot of the Gentile until the time of the Gentiles be fulfilled our time is almost done can't wait I want to go to be with Jesus he's coming he's coming so in closing you got continuity don't you you got Abraham make it a real estate transaction right after on that same mountain he just about killed his son and the voice of God said stop huh and then he looked around and the Lord showed him the RAM with Edd's around it with thorns and he said there you go there's your substitute and he made a prediction in this mountain that she'll be seen what should we see that same range is what Calvary and you got David sin and judgment raining down because of sin of Israel and the sin of David and plague is hitting it he can't say that it shouldn't be because it should be but he cried out to God that God said take that threshing floor there and set up an altar and stop the plague with the sacrifice the substitute will stop the plague and so then you got just like in Abraham you got a real estate deal between the Jew and the Gentile when the Gentile is so respectful of the jail this is your money's no good with me both times and then the juice is no I gotta buy it I got fired and then because of that blegh is stopped the offerings been made satisfaction has been given to God and on that place will be a temple of satisfaction a threshing floor a place of judgement and separation becomes a place of reconciliation with God but all of it points to the dim and distant future thousand years later when a son of Abraham and the son of David would go up on that mountain and be mounted up on a cross between heaven and earth and there's no one there to stop the Angels hand the full force of the judgment Yemen he bore our sins and iniquities surely he has borne our griefs and our sorrows he was smitten and stricken and afflicted of God but he was wounded for our transgressions he was wounded for our iniquities the chastisement that brought us peace came upon him and with His stripes we were healed amen thank you everybody may the grace of God be with

Channel: Believers in Grace Fellowship

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Keywords: God, Father, Jesus, Holy Spirit, Bible, Scriptures, Old Testament, Israel, Juda, Census, World, Temple Mount, Faithfulness, Christianity, Satan, Unesco, United Nations

Id: hxmM-iBmwCQ

Length: 36min 46sec (2206 seconds)

Published: Sat Mar 02 2019