And again, the anger of the Lord was kindled against Israel and he moved David against them to say, go number Israel and Judah. For the king said to Joab the captain of the host which was with him, Go now through all the tribes of Israel, from Dan even to Beersheba, and number ye the people, that I may know the number of the people. And Joab said unto the king, Now the Lord thy God add unto the people, how many soever they be, a hundredfold, that the eyes of my lord the king may see it. But why doth the lord the king delight in this thing? Notwithstanding, the king's word prevailed against Joab and against the captains of the host. And Joab and the captains of the host went out from the presence of the king to number the people of Israel." And they passed over Jordan and pitched in a roar on the right side of the city that lieth in the midst of the river of Gad and toward Jazir. And they came to Gilead and to the land of Timhoshi. And they came to Danjan and to Zidan. And they came to the stronghold of Tyre and to all the cities of the Hivites and the Canaanites. They went out to the south of Judah, even to Beersheba. So when they had gone through all the land, they came to Jerusalem at the end of nine months and 20 days. And Joab gave the number of the people unto the king. There were in Israel 800,000 valiant men that drew the sword, and the men of Judah were 500,000 men. And David's heart smote him after he had numbered the people. And David said unto the Lord, I have sinned greatly in that I have done. And now I beseech thee, O Lord, take away the iniquity of thy servant, for I have done very foolishly. When David was up in the morning, the word of the Lord came unto the prophet Gad, David's seer, saying, Go, and say unto David, Thus saith the Lord, I offer thee three things. Choose thee one of them, that I may do it unto thee. So Gad came to David, and told him, and said unto him, Shall seven years of famine come unto thee in thy land? or wilt thou flee three months before thine enemies, while they pursue thee? or that there be three days' pestilence in thy land? Now advise, and see what answer I shall return to him that sent me. And David said unto Gad, I am in a great strait, let us now fall into the hands 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 unto the time appointed, and there died of the people from Dan even to Beersheba seventy thousand men. And when the angel stretched out his hand upon Jerusalem to destroy it, the Lord repented him of the evil, and said to the angel that destroyed the people, It is enough, stay now thine hand. And the angel of the Lord was by the threshing plate of Arana the Jebusite. And David spake unto the Lord when he saw the angel that smote the people, and said, Lo, I have sinned, and I have done wickedly, but these sheep, what have they done? Let thine hand, I pray thee, be against me, and against my father's house. And Gad came that day to David and said unto him, Go up, rear an altar unto the Lord in the threshing floor of Arana the Jebusite. And David, according to the saying of Gad, went up as the Lord commanded. And Aaron looked and saw the king and his servants coming on toward him. And Aaron went out and bowed himself before the king on his face upon the ground. And Aaron said, wherefore is my lord the king come to his servant? And David said, to buy the threshing floor of thee, to build an altar unto the Lord, that the plague may be stayed from the people. And our Anna said unto David, Let my lord the king take, and offer what seemeth good unto him. Behold, here be oxen for burnt sacrifice, and threshing instruments, and other instruments, for voxen for wood. And these things did Aaron give unto the king. And Aaron said unto the king, The Lord thy God accept thee. And the king said unto Aaron, Nay, but I will surely buy it of thee at a price. I will offer burnt offerings unto the Lord my God of that which doth cost me nothing. So David bought the threshing floor and the oxen for fifty shekels of silver. and David built there an altar unto the LORD, and offered burnt offerings, and peace offerings. So the LORD was entreated for the land, and the plague was staged from Israel." The first thing we see in this passage right at the very beginning of it is that the LORD is angry with Israel. It doesn't say what he's angry for. I read a lot of commentaries that speculate on what the Lord was angry for and what the Lord was angry about. But the point of the passage is that God was angry with Israel. And God, being the righteous judge, is angry against sin every day. And we have no right to question him. In fact, there's a couple of confusing things that we in our pride want to ask God why. First of all, why was he angry with Israel? And second of all, why was he angry at David? because what David did on the surface wasn't against any law and it doesn't tell us what Israel did. Perhaps God was angry with Israel for following after Absalom. Perhaps He was angry with Israel for following after Sheba. The point is the scripture doesn't tell us. In the parallel passage in 1 Chronicles it says that Satan aroused David to number the people. But in this passage it says God stirred up David to number the people. We know that everything is in the hands of God and whatever God does is for good. And when we read this passage it's disturbing to our pride to think that God could be angry with us. disturbing to us. It confronts us. And so we think first of all that's not fair. Why is God going through and destroying all the, why did God kill all these tens of thousands of Israelites for the sin of David? But then we read at the beginning of the passage that God was angry with Israel. Part of the problem is when we read scripture We read it through our own naturalistic lenses. That's the lenses that we received from Adam, the lenses of the flesh. And what we think is that all the world is basically neutral. Everybody is just pretty good people. We get along okay. Everybody's just going about their business and doing their own thing. Then there are certain people who do really good things. And then there are other people who do really bad things, but most people are just neutral. And that is not the picture of Scripture at all. That is not what's taught us in Scripture. What's taught us in Scripture is that the whole lump of clay is bad. It's wicked. We're going to read several passages of Scripture this morning that talk about that. We have no concept as to how deep the ugliness of sin actually gets every once in a while we get a tiny glimpse of our own heart and it's very very very ugly but we still have no concept in fact it's interesting when we talk about the holiness of God and if you do a study of the holiness of God the holiness of God is the God's absolute separation of anything that is sinful. He is of purer eyes than to behold evil. In fact, Scripture, because God reveals Himself to us in words that we can understand, every time it talks about the holiness of God, it stumbles around looking for the right word, and there isn't one that quite captures it. There's the inaccessible light. There's the brightness of his glory. All we know for sure is whenever any human being is confronted with the holiness of God, they're flat on their face going, have mercy on me, a sinner. Basically what I'm saying with all of this is we won't really know exactly how ugly sin is until we're face to face with pure holiness. And then we will know. And then everything that we've gone through in this earth will finally make sense. And that's a beautiful thing. So when we look at Israel, we're not looking, it's David that said they were innocent. God didn't say they were innocent. When we're looking at Israel, we're looking at a whole nation of people who are sinners. They're alienated from God. But the point of this passage is not that. The point of this passage is God's grace, which we're going to get to in a moment. So here God is looking at Israel that are all defiled and corrupt in their sins. And we're talking about really, really ugly, brutal sins, real actual sins. We're talking about rape and incest and murder and adultery and idolatry. and oppression, and strife, and contention, and lying, and covenant breaking, and treachery, all of it together. These are real actual sins. We also need to remember that the judgment throne of God, he doesn't just look at what we do, he also looks at what we would do if he allowed us to. For example, God restrains the wickedness of men on this earth. That's His common grace. He doesn't allow men to become as wicked as they could be. He did that before the flood and then destroyed the whole world in a flood. He did that in Sodom and Gomorrah and then destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah. But normally He restrains sinfulness. But there's going to come a time when He's going to hold us accountable for the sins that we would have done had He not restrained us. And if you think about that ugliness of your own heart, the stuff that keeps you awake at night, the stuff that torments you and taunts you, that's what we're talking about, the real ugliness of sin. Okay, so God's anger is aroused at Israel. We don't know why. It doesn't matter. That's not the point of the story. And so what does he do? He stirs up David to go out and number the people. I thought of all different kinds of ways as to how to present this, as to why this would be sinful, but I have none. The closest that I can get is that first of all God said it was, and it smote David's conscience. So there was something about David's actions that was contrary to God. I believe what it is because in Chronicles it says it was Satan. And the name of Satan is used very rarely in the Old Testament. Satan is the accuser. He's also a liar. And his heart was lifted up with pride. Do you remember in the New Testament I forget where. Sorry about that. Old age moment. Going out of my head there. Where the sin of Satan was associated with pride. It was Paul that told Timothy, don't lay hands on a novice, lest being lifted up with pride he fall into the condemnation of the devil. It's very important for us to remember when someone is elevated to a position of leadership, they can very quickly be overtaken by pride and fall into the condemnation of the devil. Whatever specific sin David committed here, and we also don't even know when this happened, We know it happened sometime during David's reign. I believe it was associated with pride, where David is numbering his kingdom and looking at his kingdom and doing basically the same thing that Nebuchadnezzar did in Babylon, where he said, look at this great Babylon that I have built. And so he got caught up in the pride of the devil. I believe, without getting into specifics, that pretty much covers what it is. Whatever it was, Joab recognized it. And Joab said, what you're doing, king, is not good, and you better stop. He says, may Jehovah add many more to you. There we go, why I'm leaning towards pride here. May he add many more to you, but don't do this thing. It says, but the word of the king overcame the word of Joab. God is seeking an occasion against Israel, which is kind of harsh to our ears, but wait till the end of the story. The story of the gospel does not end with the universal sinfulness of man. There's going to come something else at the end of this that's going to surprise and shock and astound. Okay, so David commits this great sin and then he's immediately convicted and he cries out to the Lord for forgiveness. We have no reason to believe that God didn't forgive David. God did not exact penance on David. What came next was the natural consequences of David's sin. David says to God, in effect, when he's numbering the people, look at this great kingdom that I have built. And God now is going to, in his perfect justice, show David what life is like apart from God. Apart from the blessing of God, if David wants to be a king just like all the other kings of the Middle Earth, or of the Middle East, then he's gonna have to deal with, he's gonna have to deal with plague and with famine and with a civil war, and with strife, and with death, and all those other things. There is a tremendous privilege to being called the people of God. It's a tremendous, wonderful privilege. Outside of being called the people of God, there is only death and misery. Now, that being said, we don't always see that distinction. In fact, we very rarely see that distinction on this earth. In fact, in the In Jesus' account of the rich man and Lazarus, Abraham says to the rich man, you received your good things on earth and now you're tormented. And he said to Lazarus, you received evil things on this earth and now you are comforted. So there are often times where the wicked receive good things on this earth. But what the scripture tells us, and we really need to grasp a hold of this, when God says, I will be your God and you will be my people, there's a tremendous privilege involved with that. Yes, there are duties and there are responsibilities of the covenant. And yes, God chastens his people. And yes, God brings us through tribulation and persecution. He leads us through the dark valleys, through the valleys of the shadow of death. And all of those things are all true. And oftentimes we're tempted by the devil to say God isn't good, especially in those dark valleys. But God says, I am your God and you are my people. Outside of that covenant relationship, there's only misery. And God shows us, just like he's showing David here in this chapter, what misery awaits him being considered a nation apart from the blessing of God. So God gives him three choices. basically tells David, pick one of these three things. David, then, relies on the mercy of God. When God comes in justice, that's all you can do, is rely on God's mercy. And here, it shows David's remarkable heart, led by the Holy Spirit. He says, don't let me fall into the hands of men. Men are cruel. Let me fall into the hands of God, for His mercies are great. And then we will see how God is merciful to David, and what God brings to the nation of Israel to bring his mercy to the nation. So God sends a plague throughout all of Israel. It says from Dan to Beersheba. Dan was the farthest point north of the nation of Israel and Beersheba was the farthest point south in Israel. It's like that folk song I can't even remember. You know when you're singing, this land is your land, this land is my land. It goes from the west coast to the east coast and all that stuff. And now it's all stuck in your head and you're trying to remember the words. And so I'm sorry about that. But it's a way of saying all of Israel, everything. The counting of Israel went through all of Israel. David is saying This is my kingdom. I built this kingdom just like all the other kings. And God is saying, no, you're my people. Here's what it means to not be my people. And he sends the plague throughout the land. The last place that the angel goes is Jerusalem. If you remember Jerusalem, back at the beginning of David's reign, 2 Samuel, I believe, chapter 6. It was in the hand of the Jebusites. Jerusalem was a stronghold. It was a powerful city. It was originally conquered in the days of Joshua, and then it was immediately lost. And so there in the middle of the land of Israel was a city of the Jebusites called Jerusalem. David saw that it was the perfect place for his kingdom. And so he conquers Jerusalem. and he makes it the capital of his kingdom. Now, as we were going through 2 Samuel, as soon as David conquers Jerusalem, the very next chapter is the account of David bringing the ark into Jerusalem. There would be no reason, remember I said at this point, why did David bring the ark into Jerusalem? How did David know that Jerusalem was the place that God had chosen? It's not explained at the beginning because that would have broken up the narrative. Here it's explained at the end. So this event happened sometime after the conquest of Jerusalem, but before David brought the ark into Jerusalem, because this event explains why the ark is brought into Jerusalem. Remember I said the last time we met, three weeks ago, that the last few chapters of Samuel are an addendum. They're not in a particular order. They're wrapping up the theme of the book of 2 Samuel and preparing for the first book of Kings. So historically it's out of order but according to the narrative and according to the suspense of the writer it's in perfect order. So here he's explaining why David brought the Ark into Jerusalem. So David has just conquered Jerusalem but here in Jerusalem there's still a Jebusite left. This is a man named Aaron. Aaron. It says in our King James version, because they misunderstand the Hebrew, that Aaron was a king. Aaron wasn't a king. David had already conquered Jerusalem. That word king is rightly translated in other versions as evocative, meaning Aaron is addressing the king. So in verse number 23, all these things did Aaron give unto the king." And Aaron said unto the king, the Lord God, God accept thee. That word king, he's addressing the king. All these things said Aaron, O king, I give these unto the king. And the Hebrew there doesn't indicate that Aaron is a king. He's addressing King David as a king. I just had to pass that over because it's going to cause some confusion. What's a king doing in the middle of Jerusalem? Anyway, he's not, he's just a thresher, he's just a farmer, and he's threshing his wheat. If you can picture this scene, this is a pretty intense scene. In the book of First Chronicles, Aaron is threshing the wheat with four of his sons. There would have been a large flat area with a barn at one end, and they would put the wheat on the flat area, and then they would either march their oxen over it or beat it with sticks or whatever it took to take the grain out of the wheat and that was called threshing. And then when they were done threshing that they'd take their pitchforks and they'd throw it up in the air. The wind would blow away the chaff and the wheat would fall down to the bottom. So when they got done all the straw and all the chaff would be blown away and down at the bottom was all the grain that was left. And then they'd shovel that grain and load it up into their barn, put it into bags and store it. That was what they were doing. Very time-consuming drudgery. All of the sudden, here comes the angel of the Lord in the air, in the sky, towards them with the sword of God outdrawn. If you can imagine how terrifying that was. I don't understand what happened. In the book of 1 Chronicles it says, the four sons of Aaron went and hid in the barn, but Aaron kept threshing wheat. I don't know what is going on in his head while this is going on, but it was a terrifying sight. The angel of the Lord, We always have this false view of angels. In the 1980s, they all looked like Michael Landon, right? Remember that show, Touched by an Angel? We always had that view of angels. In the scripture, that's not them. God has angels you wouldn't like. The destroying angel, the angel of destruction, the angel of death, the angel of the Lord comes destroying with his sword lifted. That's the sword of the wrath of God. The Bible said at the very beginning, God told Adam, the day you eat the fruit you'll die. Adam ate the fruit. The cherubim drives him out of the garden and stands there with the sword up. That's the sword of the angel of the Lord that's being held over the heads of all of mankind. It's only because of God's mercy that the sword did not fall then. and that sword still hasn't fallen. That sword is going to come on the Day of Judgment. But that sword now in a picture is going through all the land of Israel, all the land of Judah, the sword is lifted up and it's killed 70,000 people and now it's in Jerusalem and right at the floor of Aron of the Jebusite it says the Lord relented. the Lord had mercy. How the Lord was able to relent is not revealed to us until we get to the New Testament. How can God, who's perfectly just, all of a sudden change his mind and be merciful? How can God be vindicated in that? Can you say that God is just when he killed everybody from Dan to Beersheba, but stopped in Jerusalem? And now we're going to start learning a little bit more about God one place at a time. As the angel has stopped there at the floor of our honor, the Jebusite, let's go back to the days of Moses. God told Moses and Moses told the people that the day was going to come when they came into the land of Israel. that God would choose a place and he would put his name at a place and in that place God would reveal himself to his people. This place would be the city where God would choose to place his name. Where God, where God, Moses said this is where the tabernacle is going to go. This is where your offerings are going to be sacrificed. You're not going to take your offerings and offer them wherever you want to. You're not going to take them to all the high places and offer them wherever you want to after I find the place where I place my name. When I pick that place, that's where you're going to offer the sacrifices. Up until this point, all the way up before, God had said, I haven't chosen the place yet. In fact, in the covenant God made with David in 2 Samuel chapter 7, God said to David, in all the times of the judges when I was going with you, when I was walking with you, fellowshipping with you, did I ever once say, why haven't you built me a house? The point is, We don't decide this would be a good place to worship God. God told Israel, it's not going to be where you're just going to decide any old place. Well, I like this place. Well, I like this place. I'm going to choose the place. And so all of Israel is waiting now, going, how is God going to choose a place? What's going to happen? There were many times in Israel, like the descendants of Gideon, other people, where they said, this will be the place. And God says, no, that's not the place. And they're waiting. How is God going to choose the place? And now, let's move forward again to David. Here goes the angel of death going to the land, destroying everything. And all of a sudden, the angel stops right at the floor of Aaron of the Jebusite. And then Gad comes to David. Gad's the prophet. The Lord speaks to Gad. Gad goes to David. Gad says, offer a sacrifice right there. And that's where the angel of the Lord is poised with his sword ready to destroy Jerusalem. And Gad says, offer a sacrifice. And so David goes to Aaron and says, I'm going to buy the threshing floor. I'm going to buy the oxen. I'm going to buy the wood. I'm going to build an altar right here. Sell it to me. Aaron says, I'll give it to you. And David says, no, no, I'm going to buy it. It's not going to cost me nothing. This is a sacrifice that needs to come from me. As the king, David needs to make the sacrifice. He needs to make the offering. Here, David is going to foreshadow the great high priest, his son, Jesus Christ. Here he's going to foreshadow that. In fact, he said earlier, let the curse fall upon me and my house, but no longer destroy the people. And God's going to answer that prayer and the curse is going to fall upon the house of David, but in a way far different than what we're expecting. And so, The angel of the Lord, again, is just standing there with the sword, or he's up in the sky with the sword poised, ready to destroy. David offers a sacrifice. As soon as the sacrifice is offered, as soon as the burnt offering is offered, the angel takes the sword and sheathes the sword, puts the sword up, and then goes. And David then knows, 1 Chronicles it's emphasized more. This is the place. This is the place of sacrifice. Then we go back, historically we go back to David bringing the Ark of the Covenant in, which is what would have been so shocking to David. Now he's rejoicing. He knows where the place is. It's in Jerusalem. So he builds his palace there. He brings the Ark of the Covenant there. but on the way the Ark of the Covenant is coming in, remember the oxen stumble and they fall and Uzzah reaches forward to grab it and stop it and he's struck dead. I was saying, no, no, God's provided sacrifice, but God is still holy. God will dwell with his people, but he still dwells in unaccessible light. You don't just walk into the presence of the Lord. And then in the book of Hebrews, at the end of all that, when Christ is finally revealed, the great son of David, who's opened up the Holy of Holies, where Jerusalem is finally revealed to be the throne room of God, and all of us have access to the throne room of God, and yet at the end of that, he says, If you died under Moses, how much greater will be the punishment if you reject the Son? So today it's not that God is no longer holy because God's nicer in Jesus. In fact, it's even more serious since God has now spoken to us by his son, instead of in pictures and in shadows, how much more serious is it to approach him only by the blood and by the sacrifice of Jesus Christ who has clothed us, who has given us his righteousness so that we can stand before God. And how much more serious is it when we neglect coming before Him, when we treat His blood as a contemptuous thing, a light thing. If you think about what they saw in the Old Testament, how much greater does God hold us accountable for what we know when it's been revealed to us by the Son instead of by angels. That is where 2 Samuel ends. It ends with the place that David purchases from Aaron the Jebusite. And 2 Samuel ends there. The place of the temple is now chosen. In 1 Chronicles, we go to 1 Chronicles because the emphasis is all on the temple. There's a little bit of a difference in 1st Chronicles and in 2nd Samuel. First of all, 1st and 2nd Chronicles, according to the Hebrew canon of scripture, they're the last books of the Old Testament. They were written after the exiles returned from Babylon. When the exiles under Ezra and Nehemiah, they were probably written by Ezra. But as they returned from exile, Ezra is encouraging and strengthening them, teaching them the law, building them up, as well as warning them what happens when they forsake the Lord. And so 1 and 2 Chronicles are written from the perspective of rebuilding the temple. of reminding them of the days of David and Solomon, showing them the order of the temple service, because at that time they're rebuilding the destroyed temple. And so there's a huge emphasis, a priestly emphasis, in 1 and 2 Chronicles. 1 and 2 Samuel are about the king. 1 and 2 Chronicles are about the priest. So those aspects are coming in. So it's from a different perspective. But what we find throughout the rest of 1 Chronicles is David then after he's got the place, after he has been told by God that you're not going to be the one to build the temple, David then starts to gather all the implements and he starts to make the tongs and the shovels and the bowls and gathers the gold and the silver and the bronze and everything and he starts to instruct Solomon. This is how you do a building. This is how you put things together. and he prepares Solomon to build the temple when he passes. So 1 Kings, which will begin next week, starts with David old and dying and the transition to Solomon and then we'll see the divided kingdom and we'll start that next week.