Well, Trinitas, here we are. This is it. We are in the last chapter of 2 Samuel. This is the last thing that God the Holy Spirit wants you to know about the life of King David. We began this sermon in January of 2023, rather sermon series, and we've had 62 sermons since, this being the 62nd. Of course, in between, we've had all sorts of standalone sermons and different series. Every Resurrection Sunday, Palm Sunday, we deviate from the main book that we're preaching from. Zach Wetzel has also been preaching sermons in between from Galatians. But we've been in this book for two years. And I think it's worth reflecting for all of you that you have all walked through the life of David yourselves. I do hope that you can reflect on the fact that you have a deeper understanding of who this man was. I've actually told you many times, we know more about David than any other figure in the Bible. 1st and 2nd Samuel are all about him. We know more about his youth than we know about Jesus' youth. And because David lived many more years than Jesus in his 30 years of ministry, we know about this man in his middle age, and when he is very old, like he is in this passage before us. You've got to ask yourself, why God? wanted every single generation of Christians to know about the life of this man, perhaps more than any other man in the Bible. Hopefully before the end of the sermon today, it will become clear to you. We're gonna read about David's second great sin. David's first great sin, of course, had everything to do with Bathsheba and David's orchestration of the murder of her husband, Uriah. This sin in this passage is going to imperil the nation. It's gonna put it under the very wrath of God. Now given that there are always difficult themes in the Bible, we're gonna go to the Lord in prayer before we read 2 Samuel chapter 24. So bow your heads with me. Lord God, There's something paradoxical about reading about the life of David. At some points, he seems so strong and courageous in his faith that, Lord, we might even feel judged by his example. Other times, he is so obviously sinful. Many of us leave certain passages feeling like we're better than this figure central to the Old Testament. Either way, Lord God, we are like a pendulum. It swings back and forth between pride and despair. Lord, I pray that this very natural effect of the text on our souls would drive us back to the foot of Jesus' cross. Whether we despair or whether we carry about in pride, we need a savior, as did David, Despite the fact that we live so many of our days feeling ourselves to be self-sufficient, Lord, we need you. Lord, please encourage us with the good news of the gospel, with your presence by your Holy Spirit. Please convict us by your word that we might celebrate our Savior, Jesus Christ. In his name we pray, by your spirit, amen. Got your Bibles, go ahead and open them to 2 Samuel chapter 24. We're gonna read the whole chapter. And then when we're finished, I'll say this is God's word and you can rise to your feet and we'll sing a short verse together, the Gloria Patri to give thanks to God for his word. 2 Samuel 24 verse one. Now again, the anger of the Lord burned against Israel and it incited David against them to say, go number Israel and Judah. The king said to Joab the commander of the army who was with him, go about now through all the tribes of Israel from Dan to Beersheba and register the people that I may know the number of the people. But Joab said to the king, now 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. But why does my lord the king delight in this thing? Nevertheless, the king's word prevailed against Joab and against the commanders of the army. So Joab and the commanders of the army went out from the presence of the king to register the people of Israel. They crossed the Jordan and camped in Arur, on the right side of the city that is in the middle of the valley of Gad and toward Jazar. Then they came to Gilead and to the land of Tatim-Hoshdi-Hodshi, and they came to Dan-Ja'an and around Sidon, and came to the fortress of Tyre, and to all the cities of the Hivites and of the Canaanites, and they went out to the south of Judah to Beersheba. So when they had gone about through the whole land, they came to Jerusalem at the end of nine months and 20 days. And Joab gave the number of the registration of the people to the king. And there were in Israel 800,000 valiant men who drew the sword, and the men of Judah were 500,000 men. Now David's heart troubled him after he had numbered the people. So 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 acted very foolishly. When David arose in the morning, the word of the Lord came to the prophet Gad, David seer saying, go and speak to David. Thus says the Lord, I am offering you three things. Choose for yourself one of them, which I will do. So Gad came to David and told him and said to him, shall seven years of famine come to you in your land? Or will you flee three months before your foes while they pursue you? Shall there be three days pestilence in your land? Now consider and see what answer I shall return to him who sent me. Then David said to Gad, I am in great distress. Let us now fall into the hand of the Lord, for his mercies are great, but do not let me fall into the hand of men. So the Lord sent a pestilence upon Israel from the morning until the appointed time, and 70,000 men of the people from Dan to Beersheba died. When the angel stretched out his hand toward Jerusalem to destroy it, the Lord relented from the calamity and said to the angel who destroyed the people, it is enough. Now relax your hand. And the angel of the Lord was by the threshing floor of a round of the Jebusite. Then David spoke to the Lord when he saw the angel who was striking down the people and said, behold, it is I who have sinned and it is I who have done wrong. But these sheep, what have they done? please let your hand be against me and against my father's house. So Gad came to David that day and said to him, go up, erect an altar to the Lord on the threshing floor of Arana the Jebusite. David went up according to the word of Gad, just as the Lord had commanded. Arana looked down and saw the king and his servants crossing over toward him. And Arana went out and bowed his face to the ground before the king. Then Arana said, Why has my Lord the King come to his servant? And David said, to buy the threshing floor from you in order to build an altar to the Lord that the plague may be held back from the people. Arana said to David, let my Lord the King take and offer up what is good in his sight. Look, the oxen for the burnt offering and the threshing sledges and the yokes of the oxen for the wood. Everything, O King, Arana gives to the King. And Araunah said to the king, may the Lord your God accept you. However, the king said to Araunah, no, but I will surely buy it from you for a price, for I will not offer burnt offerings to the Lord my God, which cost me nothing. So David bought the threshing floor and the oxen for 50 shekels of silver. David built there an altar to the Lord and offered burnt offerings and peace offerings. Thus, the Lord was moved by prayer for the land and the plague was held back from Israel. This is God's word. Trinitas, we're gonna jump two feet into this passage and try to explain what's going on. I wonder if any of you, when I was reading the word, wondered what exactly was David's sin? He counted the people. It sounded like God was unhappy about it, but what was the problem? My goodness. It won for the people a plague and 70,000 deaths. Well, let's start with the opening verse. The opening verse says, now the anger of the Lord burned against Israel again. Again, it happened. Here's the thing. That word again could refer to any number of things. If you know the story of Israel, God's not happy with his people quite a lot. There are many, many times when they deviate from God's command. But what we do know about this situation is that it's got to be relatively late in David's kingship that this occurs. Reason being, when David does send out Joab to number the people, it's very clear that David has control over the farthest extent of the land. He doesn't have that till later in his reign. this anger of the Lord that burns again at least reminds us of chapter 21. We read that Saul, he went about killing certain people in the land whom the people of Israel made a covenant with never to kill. They were called the Gibeonites and they were suffering from years of famine at that point. The suggestion is that the people are under another supernatural judgment. Well, why? What did Israel do that would bring the anger of the Lord against them? Well, the simple answer is that whenever Israel finds itself in a place of comfort, they tend in that place of comfort to grow laxed about serving their God, they become proud in addition to lazy, and their hearts begin to wander. that this was what occurred seems rather likely. And then when we ask, what does the anger of the Lord burning against them mean? It very likely means that he hands his people over to a distinct sort of judgment that God pours out on his people when they become lazy and proud. What he often does is he hands them over to fear itself. Look in the book of Leviticus, chapter 26, verse 36. God threatens this very sort of judgment toward a wayward people. He says this, I will bring weakness into their hearts and the sound of a driven leaf will chase them. Even when no one is pursuing, they will flee. It's interesting, but when we have more comforts, when we have more securities, we actually often become more fearful about how we can keep those things. The text then tells us is this, and this is a very curious and hard to accept concept for most of us. The text says God's anger burned against Israel, this corporate people, and his anger against Israel incites David, their king, to sin and disobedience. Something you need to know about what your and my sin merits. Our sin merits not just a punishment for an individual, it merits not just what the world would call karma for you or for me individually. Sin opens the door to a malicious person. A malicious person known as the devil, known as Satan, and the demonic hosts who heed his command. It's very strange when you start thinking about sin like this. It's burdensome to think of sin like this. What it means, first of all, is that the sins you commit in private, frankly, are not just private. Because they don't just invite judgment, they open a door to a spiritual enemy, and guess what? In 2 Chronicles 21, the parallel to this passage, where this passage says, the anger of the Lord incited David to sin, guess what 2 Chronicles 21 says? It says, Satan incited David to sin. It is unambiguous that a spiritual enemy has been invited into Israel by their pride, laxity, and sin. This spiritual enemy has a profound capacity to stir up a disposition of fear, even when the people have security on all sides. And that, my friends, is why David goes about counting his fighting men. A fearful nation, a fearful people who otherwise has security says, we wanna know what our fighting host looks like. And that king joins his people in fear and he wants the same thing. How big are we? How capable are we of fighting off the enemy? I wanna put it out there and just stop on this basic concept of other people's sins affecting you and inciting you to sin and vice versa. And ask yourself if it's not totally obvious. When you find yourself in a place where you have to walk through a homeless encampment, and I'll let you know on the front end, most of the people in that encampment have probably been sinned against in terrible ways themselves. Most of the homeless people that I've had lunch with and talked to uniformly will tell me that they come from something of a broken home, which drives them to drug abuse and even greater despair. But I would ask you, when you walk through that community that is bearing the judgment of much sin, do you yourself feel a little bit despairing? Do you? It's contagious. And you know that. Just the same if you are a party to other people's strife. If you have to watch your kids fight on the daily, or if you children have to see your parents fight, or if one sibling has a fight with their parent and you have to observe it, does it make you feel at all inclined to angry behaviors, even careless behaviors toward others around you? This is the way that sin works. What this means is we have to take very seriously the command of 1 Thessalonians 5a. Paul tells us there to put on the helmet of hope. I want you to take that seriously because here's what it tells you. A disposition of hopefulness isn't something that just happens to you. And then these other people around you who seem hopeful, they seem like they have this fruit of the spirit. Actually, you're commanded to stir up that disposition in you. And if you do not embrace that command, you will be hopeless everywhere you encounter a person who is the same. You will be fearful, like David here, when you encounter a whole community and nation of people who are fearful. You're commanded to embrace these dispositions. It isn't something that you should just wait to happen to you. The Spirit of God lives in you, plead for the Spirit of God to exude these dispositions and fruits in your soul. In the face of despair, in the face of fear, have you learned to pray? Friends, it's actually dangerous if you get in the habit of being able to drive past homeless people in the streets, if you get into the habit of being able to see people melt down over election results and you just go on with your day. It's dangerous because you will become calloused, you will become insensitive spiritually, you must give yourself to a daily disposition of prayer. David seems not to have done this in this pivotal moment. And so we come to David's second great sin. We're gonna meditate on this for a little while. Now, in chapter 23, anybody remember the last name in the list of David's mighty men that we read? What was the last name, anybody know? Uriah the Hittite, the guy around whom David's first big sin centered. That's your first clue, that this chapter is getting you ready for the next great sin. In this chapter, just like in David's great sin against Uriah, David's accomplice is his shady general, Joab. Just like when David committed that crime with Bathsheba and Uriah, and he's met by a prophet to call him out, what do we have here? Gad, the prophet, calls David out. In fact, if you ever wonder why 1 and 2 Samuel are called by those names, even though Samuel's dead for the whole second Samuel, the answer is this. Prophets since Samuel call out kings. In 1 Samuel, Samuel calls out Saul. Even after he dies, he comes back and calls out Saul again. And here in 2 Samuel, even while Samuel is dead, these subsequent prophets, Nathan and Gad, are like the return of Samuel, to keep calling out kings and people in authority. It's as if Samuel's returned. Now let's talk about this great sin. We've yet to totally uncover what it is, but whatever it is, one thing that's very obvious is that it is extremely serious. You get this from every angle. It starts with the fact that Joab himself is a shady character. It's like, David, are you sure you want to do this? This seems like a bad idea. He says this in verse three, why does my Lord the King delight in this thing? Hold up, man. Now, when Joab is calling you out and saying, maybe you shouldn't do this, that's your first clue. It's like when your friend who is inclined to all sorts of misbehaviors is like, whoa, boy, you had better double take. It's also clear from David's own response, the second that this count is finished. From that second forward, it says David's heart was troubled and he says to himself, I've sinned greatly, oh no. I can see it coming. And then of course you look at the consequences. No matter how you slice this, the consequences as weighed by God are tremendous. Famine for multiple years, fleeing from your enemies and their sword for multiple months for a plague. This is something you wouldn't wish, even on people who rub you the wrong way. So let's talk about the crime. It can't be that David took a census in and of itself. Why? Because godly men all throughout the Bible take censuses. Moses took a census. So that can't be it. This has led some commentators and theologians to suggest that maybe the heart of the sin was not anything he did, but the disposition of his soul when he did it. That David perhaps is acting out of fear, and that's what God's displeased with. Or David's acting out of pride, trying to prop up his own sense of greatness by knowing the actual number of his fighting men. And there is truth to that. It's almost right. But here's the thing, Joab wouldn't have called out a disposition of heart from his king. How would he have known that's his disposition? It doesn't make a great deal of sense. I would submit to you that the best answer is that God actually commanded his people how to take a census, and there are conspicuous details that are missing in David's application of that command. In Exodus 30, God tells what to do. It says, when you take a census of the sons of Israel to number them, typically for war, says, then each one of them shall give a ransom for himself to the Lord, so that there will be no plague. It literally says that. You don't want a plague when you number your fighting men, then they need to pay a ransom for themselves, and here's what it was. This is what everyone numbered shall give, it says in Exodus 30, 13. A half shekel, according to the shekel of the sanctuary, that number would not increase or decrease depending on your socioeconomic status. You gotta give the half shekel. And it says you shall take the atonement money from the sons of Israel and shall give it for service of the tent of meeting. Let me tell you what's going on here. The Lord says when you number men to go out to battle, You must charge those same men not to fight by their own might and strength, but rather to finance the priesthood who offer up burnt offerings and sacrifices, a cloud covering and atonement for the people of God. When a sacrifice would go up, clouds would go up, and it signified a covering and a banner from the Lord. God says, if I'm gonna come near to the people and be in their war camp, then what must increase is this priestly ministry of covering because sinful people can't get too close to me without getting burned themselves. So the barrier, the wall, the atonement, the covering must increase. These concepts are tough for us, but the word atonement literally means covering. That's what it means. God says, if you want me to come near and fight, you've got to cover yourselves. This is a way of telling the people that when you go out in battle, your sword is not gonna be the main thing that delivers you. It's like Zechariah 4, 6 says, where the prophet tells the people on behalf of God, not by might, nor by power, but by my spirit, says the Lord. by my glory, which is in your midst, whether you can see it or not, that's how you will conquer. By failing to raise this poll tax of the people and counting them at the same time, David might not have thought of it this way, but David was, as it were, stealing Israel to be his fighters as opposed to the Lord's. He was a thief. Can you imagine why did David do this? Well, when people are scared, The last thing that they want to do is pay more taxes, right? And David says, I need to know the number of the people. We got to skip all the formalities. And David incurs the very plague that was threatened. We actually have another angle on this to help confirm that this is what was going on. There's one other passage that reflects on these events. It says in 1 Chronicles 27, 24, Joab the son of Zerui had begun to count those under the age of 20 years. And because of this, wrath came on Israel. Think about this. The minute you've gotten rid of the poll tax, which only an adult male could reasonably pay, and David says, forget the tax, you go out and count everybody, what's to say to not count the 17 year olds, the 16 year olds, the 15 year olds? After all, we're scared, and we've got enemies, and we gotta count them all. Everything counts. It says in the text that David actually dissuaded Joab from doing that, but the implication is clear. You take out that monetary responsibility. And what's the limit on the counting? There's several lessons from this, friends. First one is this. Every one of you needs to exercise extreme caution. when it comes to metrics for your own success that admit for easy counting, and there are all sorts of those sorts of metrics. One of the greatest ones today is social media. Maybe in your own mind, you're pretty sure that what you posted was right if the number of likes on that post outweighs the number of mean comments or hate faces. Just the same you might try to measure your success by your bank account, even by your grades in school. And frankly, if you're an athlete, how many points you score. We have an appetite for counting and we find a whole lot of peace and comfort in that counting, don't we? But this passage tells you something. Your methods of counting, they don't count at all. You know, you can be a great NBA scorer, but if you go around brandishing weapons on social media and hanging out with gangsters, it doesn't really matter for your team. It doesn't really matter for the people around you. Your average is just about useless. What this tells us is that there is something very difficult to measure, which is obedience to the Lord, which is faithfulness to the living God. And the thing about it that drives us nuts about it is that you can't have a test where you stick some sort of stick with your saliva on it into some solution and out comes an exact number for your holiness. But this passage tells you that that really is frankly all that matters if you want the living God fighting on your behalf. I would tell you something right now, be weary of these methods of counting your success. It's not that these things are meaningless, but that is not where our strength resides as Christians. I'll tell you another lesson from this text. Be very careful not to be a Christian warrior who fears the enemy tremendously. And so what you do to express your faith is you debate everyone about theology and you get online and you let everybody know how things should be socially, theologically, and in the church. And yet at the same time, you neglect the positive commandments that the Lord has given you. David's ready to fight. But at the very same time, he's neglecting the positive aspects of the Christian life that had been laying upon him. Oh, and to what peril? Your faith will die if you go about being a warrior for Jesus, and then you say at the very same time, I don't actually wanna do any of the things that apply to me. I just wanna war with all those who are wrong. This is what David is engaging in. I'm gonna tell you one third lesson. Do not treat minors as combatants. There are duties that you have in the church, if you are an adult, that frankly differ from your minors, even if they are communicants. In fact, this is one of the classic passages that Presbyterian theologians have historically pointed to, indicating that children should not be entrusted with the task of electing officers. They shouldn't be entrusted with other substantial tasks like voting about whether we'd sell our church property. What you'd be asking from them is not appropriate. There's an appropriate correlation between those who take on the most combative roles in the church and those who support it out of their own finances and what they produce with their hands. And this was laying on the people of God from the beginning. But we turn now to the plague. What we read is that the very morning after David gets this count, the word of the Lord came to the prophet Gad. This prophet confronts the king, gives him three options, and I wanna give you a few frames of reference for how to think about these options. He gives them options that have different time frames. One is seven years, one is three months, and one is three days. Maybe on that level alone you'd step back and go, I'll take the three day option simply because it's shorter. And that's fair enough, but what David calls attention to most of all is whether he is putting himself directly in the hands of God for judgment or in the hands of God mediated through sinful men. That's his concern. To begin with, war puts you very obviously at the hands of hateful enemies. If you're at war for three years, even if God promises, I meant to say three months, that that war will end after three months, guess what? Very likely if you've gone to war with other people and it subsides after three months, the feelings of anger about that war will not subside and probably more war is gonna come. And Dave, you can see that that option has ramifications that potentially have no end. Take his well famine. Famine is a little bit less in the hands of men, but here's what actually happens when nations are hungry and economically depressed. You know what they usually do? They go to war and take the food and they take the provisions of other people. And David again goes, I don't want to put my people or myself in a position where I am tempted to greater hostilities. I potentially have no end. But let me tell you something about plague and sickness. No nation ever went to war with another nation because they were sick. Plague and sickness puts you in the hands of the Almighty utterly. Most of all, reliant on God's mercy to end what's going on. When you're sick, it's one of those things, but you typically have this, I don't have this sense, I don't really have anyone to blame. I don't know who to be mad at right now, and in fact, when you're sick, you're most of all confronted with the fact that you are under a curse and that you mustn't be on right terms with the Almighty because He is surely allowing this to happen to you. In fact, frankly, this is how most of us will die, friends. Most of you won't be murdered, good news. Most of you won't die at war. Almost certainly you're not gonna die of starvation, but in the rarest circumstances, Even statistically, you're not most likely to die from an accident or human error. You are most likely to die because your body starts to break down in one way or another, succumbs to one of the major illnesses that take people in old age. And in those moments on your deathbed, you will have to ask the question, why am I here? I don't want my life to end. Why is it ending? and your only conversation will be with your maker at that moment. You'll find yourself asking why, oh why, and your answer will be the same as it was for David as to why this plague was going forth, and it's simple. You and I, just like David, just like Adam, we are thieves. We are taking from God what is His, insisting on doing things our way, and our whole lives are testaments to this. The answer for us will be the same as it was for David, which is the same as it was for Adam, which is the same as it was for Judas. We're thieves. We've stolen everything. our whole lives from obedience at all times to our creator who we are indebted to at all times for every breath. And then we ask how this plague was stopped. We read that 70,000 were killed and some point on the third day, in the middle of the third day perhaps, David is like, please end it now. Says when the angel stretched out his hand over Jerusalem to destroy it, and note, it's an angel. This flies in the face, friends, of all the scientific materialism in which you live. The Bible is quite clear. Supernatural forces are at work in wars. They're at work in human sickness. They're at work in famine. But it says, when the angel stretched out his hand toward Jerusalem to destroy it, the Lord relented from the calamity and said to the angel who destroyed the people, it is enough. Now relax your hand. says that the angel of the Lord was by the threshing floor of around of the Jebusite. Then David spoke to the Lord when he saw the angel who is striking the people and said, behold, it is I who have sinned. Please let your hand be against me and against my father's house. Let me paint the picture for you. The angel of the Lord is approaching Jerusalem. this city that has been set apart to be God's holy city. And God himself from heaven says, stop right there. He actually stops at a threshing floor. If you don't know what that is, it's a very important place in the process of farming. After you have sheaves of grain, it would be brought to a threshing floor where it would be stomped and where it would remove the wheat heads from the shaft. Threshing floors are all throughout the Bible an image for judgment. Mankind, we're like stalks of wheat. Sometimes that wheat, mankind, gets pounded and it separates those useless pieces of the grain or those reprobate members of humanity from those who are faithful and those who are the Lord's. A great separation occurs. This is why in the Bible a grain offering is so significant. It's really something in our place. We are, as it were, like plants growing up, erect from the ground. We have to be separated, those who are the Lord's from those who are his enemies. The key in this passage, this judgment, stopping at a threshing floor is David's intercession. And this, my friends, this, my friends, might help to answer the question, why this long set of books? Why this biblical focus on a guy like David? At least one good answer is that it is so important that we understand that this powerful prayer that stopped a plague came from a man who you all saw succumb to sexual sin many times over. It came from a man. who you've seen steal another man's wife, and even orchestrated her husband Uriah's murder. It is important that you understand this efficacious prayer came from the man whom you have all seen fail as a father, rearing up his own worst enemy in Absalom, came from a man whom you have seen abuse power and authority. It came from a man who you have seen steal from the Almighty Himself. I would submit to you, I could tell you that the Lord hears prayers from men like that, but if you had not read these two books, if you had not taken in every detail, you would likely never believe it. You'd likely never believe it. David is showcased in the Bible not as the sort of hero that the world loves, not as some sort of flat character who has no flaws, but as a man who is a sinner and even amidst his sin does not cease to confess it, does not cease to call on God for forgiveness for it. And what he does is more than just say, I'm sorry. He pleads the gospel. See, when you read this verse, behold the desire of sin, please let your hand be against me and against my father's house, you might just hear a self-imprecatory prayer and that's it. But if you did, you've read it wrong. In chapter seven of this book, God made a promise to David in his house that he was gonna have a son who would reign forever. He promised him that he would have a savior son like no other who would usher in eternity. And when David says, let this come upon me in my house, he knows that in his house, there would be one man about whom it can be said within him resides the power of an indestructible life. Put my sin and all this judgment on me in my house, because in my house, there is a priest who will reign forever. David speaks about his savior, who he knew would come from his line in Psalm 110, in these incredible supernatural terms. He speaks about him in Psalm 2. He speaks about him in a variety of messianic psalms. Psalm 89, David had a deeper sense of who Jesus was than you might think even a thousand years before he came. It says redirect your wrath. let it be spent on the one who can bear it unto death. Yes, David was ready to personally die, but only in faith in the one who could not die. The contents of this prayer, it tells you two things about David. As the one who intercedes with his own life and with a prayer, David is like a foreshadowing of Jesus Christ, but as one who is allowed to live, and just offer animal sacrifices. Instead, he was himself the beneficiary of Christ. No less than you and me. Every sinner's prayer is the same, guys. When you pray a prayer to the living God in saving faith, you are saying, kill me, oh God, in Jesus Christ, that I and others may be free from the curse and the consequences of our sin. Every single sinner's prayer is, I am a sinner, erase me as such in Jesus' name. Raise up in me someone anew. It's important for you guys to know that should any person whatsoever, no matter how sinful, if any person whatsoever should plead God's mercy in Jesus Christ, to die as a sinner and be victorious in Jesus Christ, he will live. He'll live. You see in this, David's sanctification. He's a person who intercedes with his life, but he's also a person who follows that prayer with something tangible, a sacrifice. In fact, David takes in what sacrifice really is. And the man who wanted to count everything without any sort of payment to God becomes a man who will not attempt to serve God ever again without paying something. Look at what he does. It says, so Gad came to David that day and said to him, go and erect an altar to the Lord on the threshing floor of Aran of the Jebusite. Take your time, your energy, and your skills and build something for me. David goes and finds this around of the Jebusite. If you're wondering who this guy was, he was one of the Canaanite tribes who would have been wiped out, but is clearly a convert to Israel's religion and to her God. And David is met by a convert, not even a son of Abraham, who's more willing to give sacrificially than he himself. But David won't let it happen. It says this, the king said to Aaron, after Aaron says, I'll give you my threshing floor. I'll give you, I'll give you the ox and even the wood for the fire. The king said, no, but I will surely buy it from you for a price. for I will not offer burnt offerings to the Lord that cost me nothing. That's how I got here in the first place. I wanted to have a force and an army and security without pleading God as my covering and my banner. So David bought the threshing floor and the oxen for 50 shekels of silver and built there an altar to the Lord. Here we see the anxious thief becoming a willing giver We see that David gets back to building the kingdom of God and saving faith, and he takes up a disposition. Please, let some of the tax fall to me. That, my friends, is the appetite and disposition of a person who has been justified by grace alone, through faith alone, who has been delivered by God's loving kindness, and that only. Please. Make something of what is mine. Make something of this life that is feeble and frail. Please let it be committed to your kingdom. I'm gonna tell you all something in this room. Unless you become a living sacrifice for the living Lord Jesus Christ, your assurance of salvation will wane. Your sense of proximity and nearness to your creator will suffer. The richness of your life of faith, it will be compromised. The thief David is met by a foreign convert, more ready to give than David, and rather than despise him for it, he learns from it. Can we do this? Is this our disposition? That's what I like to hear, man. The fruit of all this is a mighty display of God's incredible providence. And let me tell you the beautiful display. It's more beautiful than what you see right on the surface of this text. as scripture will unfold in 1 Kings, which we won't preach through next, don't worry, we won't just stay in the Old Testament. Following Israel's sin, God's judgment, David's sin, more judgment, we have this beautiful display. What we'll actually learn is that this very site where the wrath of God was stopped is where Solomon's temple of stone will be built. Right on the threshing floor of Araunah, the Jebusite. Could God have told his people in a more mighty way that this temple is where death stops, it's where death dies, it's where the destroying angel and his sword is put back in its sheath. This is the place where God separates the wheat from the chaff, his people from the reprobate. This is the place where prayers are going to be heard. And when you take into account that this stone house that would be the center of Israelite religion for hundreds of years is nothing at all but a type and image of Christ, then we really get it. When Jesus walked the earth in Matthew 12, six, you know what he told people? Something greater than Solomon's temple is right here. What do you suppose he was saying? but that this right here, my body, is where death stops. This is where judgment ends. This is where the curse is swallowed up. This is where it's all taken away, friends. This is it. It also looks backwards. In 2 Chronicles 3.1, we actually learn that this site of around us threshing floor was the very same place where Abraham went up onto a mountain. God instructed him to sacrifice his son Isaac, but instead he replaces that sacrifice of a son with an animal. It is the same location. Reinforced over and over that this is where God supplies a substitute. This is the place where you offer your own life even the life of your whole household, but God gives it back to you anew and provides his own substitute. This is the place where God's own son dies. Trinitas, I hope you have a renewed sense of what this church is. We're the body of Jesus Christ. What does that mean? We're a temple. We are the location where death stops. First Peter 2.5 says, you also, your living stones, and being built up as a spiritual house for a holy priesthood to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ, and that is everything happening in this service, from your presence here to the confessions you speak of sin and of faith, to the praises you offer in aroma to the living God, your tithes and offerings, you're coming to the table as the apex to have fellowship with your God. Do you know, understand? Do you know, understand? Know and understand that death stops here. Jesus says that we're the salt of the earth, friends. Literally, we are a preservative in this earth. Literally, what this means is that we are justly under a curse and there would be destroying angels let loose justifiably were it not for a temple and a house where intercession, songs of praise, contradict the world. Spiritual battle happens right here. Things occur in worship that cannot be measured. And when it comes to things that count, every prayer that goes up from this house of worship and every other house of worship on the Lord's day, every prayer counts. in a way that numbers of money doesn't count, in a way that numbers of mere bodies doesn't count, in a way that social media likes do not count. There are things that the world cannot measure. And so I ask you something. Believer, do you understand what happened in church today? If someone asked you, hey, you went to church today, what happened there? I hope your answer is not, I learned a few things. This is not primarily an educational institution. I hope you did learn a few things, but that's not primarily what this is. I hope you can answer with credulity. What I did in church today, well, with Jesus Christ, death was stopped. Resurrection was tasted and proclaimed. Hostile forces were overcome and shackled. That's what happened in worship today. If you're with us today and you're an unbeliever, you've never trusted in Jesus Christ for salvation, I would simply ask you, what is your defense against the destroying angel? What do you have to plead? It's a frightening thought, but without Christ, your death is actually just the beginning of suffering. It is just the beginning of a condition of existence called eternal death. I do hope that you will flee to Jesus Christ. Flee to him as a house. Plead to him as a shield, embracing him as your savior, confessing yourself to be a sinner. Bow your heads with me. Lord, your word is incredible. There's literally no other book under heaven that tells us a redemptive historical story about where our sin and our fall came from, what you have been doing through the ages through your people in response to it, how Jesus Christ, the God-man, is the lone point of communion and contact between God and man. No other book will tell you about God, the Holy Spirit, who dwells in us and sanctifies us, through whom we call out and pray, even when we are in our darkest moments in sin. Lord, this book is so full of your glory This book is instructive to our souls. We are fed by your word. We would have no hope without your revelation to us. And we praise you for it. We thank you for it. Please, God, keep us from neglecting it, that we may not be like Israel, grown, laxed, comfortable. Lord, may we have an appetite to lay our lives down. Who we are and what we have, to worship you and to glorify you in Jesus' name we pray by your spirit, amen.