Father, we do thank You. We do praise You, even as we have been privileged today to rehearse Your great saving work. A work that escapes us in the fullness of its glory. A work that transcends our ability to fully comprehend. A work that even the angels long to look into. A work that supremely testifies to your greatness, to your wisdom, to your power, to your holiness, to your infinite love and condescending mercy. Father, all that you are, all that you know yourself to be, you have purpose to make known to your creatures through this great work in your Son. Father, that is the Gospel, the Gospel that we have heard, that we have received, the Gospel that we have believed, in which we stand, and by which we will be presented into Your presence in that day, if we continue in that Gospel, steadfast, firm, not moved from the hope that it holds out to us. And so, Father, we pray that our lives and our hearts All that we are, all that we say, all that we do would indeed testify to you in that way. That we are vessels of mercy according to the riches of your grace in Christ Jesus. May that be our song and our praise and our prayer, not only today, but for all eternity. Lead us and teach us now. Focus our hearts. Focus our minds. And Father, in a new and fresh way, reveal Christ. to us, we pray. Amen. Well, I am greatly thankful that Jason brings us back and others as well, time after time to rehearse where we've been. Always one of the great dangers, if you will, or difficulties of an extended series is that we tend to lose track. We tend even week to week sometimes to lose track, but certainly as the months roll by, we tend to lose sight of where we've been. And when we lose sight in that way, we tend to also lose sight of where we're going. And in a large series like this, not just in terms of the amount of weeks, but hopefully in your own understanding, the largeness of the series in terms of this really takes into its grasp all. that God has revealed, all that God has done, all that God is doing and that He will do in the consummating of all things in His Son. I started this series by saying that whatever doctrine, whatever biblical truth we seek to understand, we will understand it when we understand this great doctrine of sacred space. And I hope that that's becoming more evident to you as we go on. But we do need to keep the big picture in place as we move forward. We need to be reminded on an ongoing basis of what it is that we're doing. What it is that we're seeking to understand and where that we're going. God did indeed promise a kingdom. God's purpose in that kingdom was not simply that He would have something to rule over, but that God would in a sense share Himself. That the blessedness, the great glory that God has in the knowledge of Himself, in His own self-adoration. His design was that that would be manifest to a created order. And so, God created not simply with the goal of ruling something, but with the goal of glorifying Himself by having a created order find in Him what He finds in Himself. And so, the nature of the kingdom is God's lordship exercised really with a focus on communion. The creation of man, the image-bearer, that through this created being, through this image-bearer, God would make himself known and present in all of his works. And he would find the praise and the adoration, the worship and the love that he is worthy of in that creation. We've seen how the Fall introduced the principle of estrangement and how it has created the fundamental calamity that characterizes the world that we live in, the world that we see. Whatever we understand about manifestations of sin, they are all simply expressions of this one great truth of estrangement. Through man's estrangement from God comes the estrangement of all things from God. And when God's creatures, when His created order becomes estranged from Him, it becomes estranged from itself in its corporate nature and in its individual nature. And all of salvation history, as Jason reminded us, is the work of God in recovering and even perfecting what He first intended and set forth in the garden. Well, in our consideration to this point, we've come to the high point of the Davidic covenant. As God promised this kingdom to Abraham, and began to bring very formal definition to how he would recover all things. As he promised the kingdom to Abraham, he has now brought that to its pinnacle realization at least the first level in a temporal sense in the seed of Abraham, the nation of Israel, and more particularly in the person of David, the great king of Israel. And that glory and fullness of his kingdom was attested in the Davidic covenant. A covenant that not only acknowledged the fullness and the greatness, the singular fulfillment of David's kingdom, but also took that realization and projected it into the future. An everlasting kingdom, an everlasting house, an everlasting throne were all promised to David. But we've seen that no sooner does the Davidic covenant come, then David enters into a relationship with a woman named Bathsheba. And that becomes the low point of David's reign in that that initiates the decline of his kingdom. This kingdom that came to its apex in David, the kingdom promised to Abraham, now has, through this sin of David, begun a process of decline. God promised to build David's house and his kingdom and his throne to establish that house forever. And now, as a result of this episode with Bathsheba, God has determined to tear apart David's house. And we saw the tension that that raises in the narrative. How can God promise in this covenant with David that He will build a house for him, an everlasting house, and then immediately turn around and say that I have determined to tear down your house, to tear it apart. And just as the house idea in the covenant implicated both David's household, his dynasty, his royal line, and also the kingdom itself, so it was with the judgment. The judgment that God pronounced upon David when he said, the sword will never depart from your house from this day forward, had both of those same aspects. House as David's household, house as David's kingdom. And we saw last time the beginning of that process of the outworking of God's judgment and the tension that it introduces that when both of those pronouncements, a built house and a torn down house are forever, how can they both exist? And the implication seems to be that the covenant has been set aside. that God has in fact now rejected his covenant with David because of David's sin, and now his design for David and the kingdom that David presides over is its destruction. And we do see this judgment, this sword upon David's house. We see it first with respect to his household, in that God took the life of the child conceived in his encounter with Bathsheba. But from there, it spreads out to others of his children. Amnon, his son, is murdered by another son, Absalom. And then later, Absalom is murdered by Joab, who is David's nephew and the commander of his armies. He is David's right-hand man. And the judgment then begins to spread beyond even David's family, so to speak, to his kingdom. So that by the time Absalom is beginning to, before he's murdered obviously, as he's beginning to now make this attempt upon his father's throne, he so wins the hearts of the sons of Israel that the text says, all of the elders of Israel went out to Absalom. And they said, we are joined to you. We are in allegiance with you. And the plan was that they would seek the death of David. The plan was that Absalom would seek the life of his father and in that way secure the throne. And the elders of Israel were in alignment with that. So in a sense, David's kingdom is now turned against him. And David's kingdom is beginning to be torn apart. It's beginning to disintegrate from the inside. The cancer of Absalom's rebellion has now begun to make its way through the entirety of the kingdom. The sword has indeed come upon David's house, just as God promised. And yet, the text is very careful. The Samuel narrative, and certainly the rest of the scripture, but as we're dealing with the Samuel narrative, it's very careful at the same time as it documents the outworking of God's judgment. It's very careful. to show that God has not forsaken his covenant with David. That would be the appearance and that would certainly be the conclusion we would want to reach. But in fact God is maintaining his covenant with David. The first indication of that is that after Absalom's death, David is restored to the throne. And I'm not going to cover all of this in detail as I said to you many times. I hope you're continuing to read through the text week to week. so that you know ahead of time the things that I'm going to be saying. David is restored to his throne. He is restored to his place of kingship after having fled from Absalom. That's the first indication that at least suggests that David's kingdom is not in ultimate jeopardy. That God is still committed to the man David. Another indication is what the text calls David's final words. Now, the sequence in the end of the Samuel narrative, I don't believe is necessarily chronological. The Samuel writer arranged these things for thematic effect. He arranged them based on the point he was trying to make. But if you look at chapter 23 of 2 Samuel, he records this poem, this poem of praise, this poem of worship, and he ascribes these words as being David's last words. Now, we see David saying many other words, in a sense, but he wants us to see that this is really the way David ends his life. David ends his life with conviction and confidence in God. And specifically, confidence in God concerning the covenant that God has made. Now, these are the last words of David. David, the son of Jesse, declares, And the man who was raised on high, declares, David is that man, the anointed of the God of Jacob and the sweet psalmist of Israel. The Spirit of the Lord spoke by me and His word was on my tongue. The God of Israel said, the rock of Israel spoke to me. He who rules over men righteously, who rules in the fear of God, is as the light of the morning when the sun rises, a morning without clouds, when the tender grass springs out of the earth through sunshine after rain. Truly, is not my house so with God? Is this not the way that it is with my house? David is saying. For He has made an everlasting covenant with me, ordered in all things and secured. For all my salvation and all my desire will He not, indeed, make it grow? So the text wants us to see that the integrity of the covenant remains. And that just increases the tension. Because David's house and throne and kingdom are systematically, methodically, progressively going away. And they will go away. And yet, from the point of the covenant, there's this other thread or this other train of revelation, which is that God will remember His covenant with David. And we're expected to hold both of those two things together. As I said to you last time, this becomes really the main way in which Israel's faith is to be lived out from this point forward. To believe God for the end of David's house and throne and kingdom, but to believe God for the perpetuity of his house and his throne and his kingdom. And to trust God in what appears to be impossible. But today, what I would like to consider as we round out David's reign, and I've titled this judgment and promise. These are the two themes as we come to the end of David's reign, judgment and promise. We see the judgment aspect associated with David's sin, his failure to be the true king of Israel, his failure to be the true seed of Abraham. David's failure brings judgment, but through all of this runs promise. And this is very much what the writer of Samuel wants us to see as we come to the end of David's life. Judgment, but always overshadowed, always determined ultimately by promise. So having come off of this poem of David's prayer, his prayer of confident faith in God and his promise, the writer now takes us immediately after running through, again, just the strength still, the preservation of David's kingdom at the second half of chapter 23. He takes us to an episode that ends effectively David's reign. The only thing that is left is for David to transfer the kingdom to Solomon before he dies. And so, the words of faith and confidence in the covenant become reinforced. The words of chapter 23 become reinforced in this event that follows in chapter 24. And that event is David's decision to take a census of the people. A census of his kingdom, so to speak. Chapter 24, this is what we're going to be considering today. And I'm going to take just a few minutes very briefly to just run through some of the particulars of what happens in this account. But the majority of our time I want to take and devote to the implications. Why is this important? Why is this account important? Both in the near term, but ultimately in the distant, grandest sense of God's purposes. Well, David is moved to take a census of the people, and the text tells us that this is really because of God's anger with the nation. It's come to the point where God is desirous of punishing Israel for its unrighteousness. And God's intention to punish Israel is to be realized through David's decision to number the people of Israel. So verse 1, it says, now again the anger of the Lord burned against Israel, and it incited David against them to say, go, number Israel and Judah. And so this event takes place because of divine intent and divine purpose. And yet it's shown to be an act of faithlessness on David's part. What David does here is a culpable thing. And it's not simply taking a census or some sort of account of the people that itself is wrong or an act of faithlessness. David does this because his intent is to take stock, to take account of his military strength. This becomes obvious as you read down through this. He says in verse 4 that the issue is to register the people of Israel. to take account of all the people of Israel. But in verse 9 it says, And Joab gave the number of the registration of the people to the king. And there were then at that time in Israel 800,000 valiant men who drew the sword. And the men of Judah were 500,000 men. David's intent was to measure the strength of his kingdom. Now whether you say it was an issue of pride, like Nebuchadnezzar on the roof of his palace, Or whether you say it was David's attempt to bolster his own sense of the security and strength of his nation, it still represents a crisis of faith and misplaced confidence on his part. David knew that Yahweh is the great king of Israel. He is the Lord of the hosts of Israel, the armies of Israel. The idea, Lord of hosts, Yahweh Tzivaoth, it carries the idea of the hosts that are the armies of God. Often the armies of Israel. Sometimes the armies of the heavenly hosts. But the Lord of hosts is the God of armies. So that Israel's power, its strength, its triumph in every circumstance, depended entirely on God. Now take this particular episode that the author, the Samuel writer, now associates with the end, the twilight years of David's reign, and compare that back with David's entrance into his leadership role, his first presentation in a sense as a leader of Israel back in 1 Samuel 17, when he meets with Goliath. David comes out. The whole nation is afraid. They're afraid to fight the Philistines. And the Philistines say, let's reduce this down to, we'll determine this battle by your best man against our best man. And no one in Israel is willing to go out and encounter Goliath. And Goliath really represents, he epitomizes in himself, the enemies of God. Those forces that are arrayed against God and His reign and His authority. His dominion. And David is astounded and angered that no one will go out and encounter this Philistine. And so as he goes out, let's pick this up just in verse 41. David goes out and it says, now the Philistine came on and approached David with the shield-bearer in front of him. This giant who has all of the latest technological weapons of defense and offense, and he has a shield-bearer, a guy with him to carry his weaponry. And David comes out just in his regular clothing, carrying only a stick, a shepherd's staff, and his sling. And when the Philistine looked and saw David, he disdained him, for he was a youth. He was young. He wasn't anybody significant and ruddy with a handsome appearance. He was insulted. Is this the best that Israel can do? Is this the best man that they can put forth? to engage me, he was insulted. He says, am I a dog that you come at me with sticks? And he cursed David by his gods. And the Philistine also said to him, come to me and I will give your flesh to the birds of the sky and the beasts of the field. Then David said to the Philistine, you come to me with a sword, a spear, and a javelin. But I come to you in the name of Yahweh, the Lord of hosts. the God of the armies of Israel whom you have taunted. This day, Yahweh will deliver you into My hands, and I will strike you down and remove your head from you. And I will give the dead bodies of the army of the Philistines this day to the birds of the sky and the wild beasts of the earth, that all the earth may know that there is a God in Israel, and that all this assembly Israelites and Philistine, the whole assembly gathered here on this battlefield today may know that Yahweh does not deliver by sword or by spear. For the battle is the Lord's and he will give you into our hands. It's a very sharp contrast between the way David enters on the scene of his role in Israel and the way that he departs. The man who stood toe-to-toe with this Philistine giant, confident and without fear because the battle is the Lord's, is now sadly moved within himself to reckon his strength in terms of fighting men, swords and spears. Well, God's reaction to this is to send David's seer, Gad. He's the prophet that stands by David and in a sense becomes God's interface with David. God tells his seer, Gad, to go and to tell David of his indignation and to offer him three options. He can have a prolonged period of famine, seven years of famine. He can have three months fleeing from his enemies. or he can have a seven-day outbreak of pestilence in Israel. And this time, David does act in faith. Now, some say that by his words, he specifically selected the pestilence. I think he certainly said, I don't want to fall in the hands of my enemies. I'd rather fall into God's hands than the hands of men. So he was, in a sense, stepping away from the idea of being pursued by his enemies for three months. But I believe that what you see him doing is entrusting himself to God's mercy. In verse 10, he knows what he's done. He comes to the mindedness of what he's done, even before Gad comes. And he says, I've sinned greatly in what I've done, but now, O Lord, please take away the iniquity of Thy servant, for I have acted very foolishly. And when Gad comes and gives him these three options, He says to him in verse 14, I am in great distress. Let us now fall into the hand of Yahweh, for His mercies are great. And do not let me fall into the hand of men. David, who by counting the fighting men was in a sense trusting men rather than trusting God, is now saying in this time, I would rather fall into God's hands than the hands of men. And so God's response is to bring forth a plague on Israel. 70,000 men fall from Dan in the north. This common phrase, from Dan to Beersheba, means throughout the whole land. Dan is the northern extent of Israel. Beersheba is the southern extent. 70,000 men So the Lord sent a pestilence upon Israel from the morning until the appointed time, and 70,000 of the people from Dan to Beersheba died. God sends forth a smiting angel. And now this angel is approaching Jerusalem to destroy the city. Now think again about the significance of Jerusalem. We don't know, David probably doesn't ultimately know exactly how this is going to go at this point. But David has conquered Jerusalem. He's brought the Ark of God there. He's established a tabernacle for God in Jerusalem. And his intention, his confidence, is that the central sanctuary that Moses had promised is going to be built in Jerusalem through his son Solomon. And now the angel is poised to destroy Jerusalem. But when the angel stretched out his hand toward Jerusalem to destroy it, the Lord relented from the calamity and said to the angel who had destroyed the people, it is enough. Now relax your hand. And the angel of the Lord was by the threshing floor of Arana, the Jebusite." Jerusalem was a Jebusite city. So God brings this plague upon Israel, but as it's beginning now to converge on Jerusalem, it's gone from Dan in the north and Beersheba in the south, and it's beginning to, in a sense, converge on Jerusalem. God tells His angels, stay your hand. Stay your hand. Then look finally, in 17-25, at David's intercession. Then David spoke to the Lord when he saw the angel. David sees this angel coming against Jerusalem. Now, the text doesn't tell us how he saw it, how he understood what he was seeing, but he was aware that this angel that was striking down the sons of Israel was now poised to come against Jerusalem. He understood that. And he said, Behold, it is I, he says to the Lord. It is I who have sinned. 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, go up, erect an altar to the Lord on the threshing floor of Aranah the Jebusite. And David went up according to the word of Gad, just as the Lord had commanded. So what follows after this plague, the last part of the Samuel narrative, again, reinforces David's words of faith. It reinforces his confidence in the covenant continuing. But it also is very important for another reason, which we'll see in the implication of this as we move through it. This event adds a very important contribution to the revelation bound up in the covenant. Not only does this event show that the covenant is not going to go away, but more importantly, it adds content or it adds insight into the covenant, its meaning, how it will ultimately be fulfilled. So having noted again God's intention or God's relenting, God's turning his hand or pulling the angel's hand away from destroying Jerusalem, the writer now immediately turns his attention to David and what was going on in David's mind as he sees this happening, as he sees the angel poised to come against Jerusalem. And when David sees this angel in this posture, he cries out to God to lift his punishment from the people. who he says are innocent. Now, he doesn't mean that Israel is ultimately innocent. It's not. But with regard to this particular sin of counting the people which brought the plague, Israel is innocent. And he says, let your hand be upon me and my house. Let your punishment come upon me and my house. Well, God's response is to tell David, Go and build me an altar there at Arana's threshing floor." This is the place where the angel was standing when David saw him. It's the place where the angel was standing when God stopped the hand of the angel and said, it is enough. And God said, build an altar at that place and offer sacrifices to me. So David goes up and he encounters the man who owns this threshing floor, Arana, called Ornon. in the first Chronicles parallel. And he seeks to purchase this piece of ground. But Aaron comes out, he knows David, the king of Israel, and he wants to give it to him. He says, let me give you this piece of ground. And more than that, let me give you oxen for the sacrifice. And let me give you these yoke, these oxen yoke, and these implements that are wood, so that you can use them to burn the fire. You can use those to make a fire for the burnt offering. Let me give you the land. Let me give you the animals for the sacrifice and let me give you what's needed to build the fire for the sacrifices. David's response is significant, and we'll look at this more as we move through this, but he says, shall I offer sacrifices to the Lord that cost me nothing? He insisted on paying the full price. So David secures the site. He builds the altar. He offers the sacrifices as he's commanded. And then in verse 25, it says, Thus the Lord was moved by entreaty for the land, and the plague was held back from Israel. That's the way, effectively, the Samuel writer wants you to understand David's reign. That's the end of David's Now, it's not the actual end, but in terms of David's role, that's the thing he wants you to remember. Well, what are the implications of this? Those are kind of the unfolding of the events. What are the implications? The immediate implication of this is that what David is doing, this whole event with the building of the altar, the offering of the sacrifices, this event there at that threshing floor, This episode is connected very clearly in the text with what? The promise of the central sanctuary. By purchasing this threshing floor, David had obtained the site where his son Solomon would build the temple. Now, David doesn't know that at this time, but look at 1 Chronicles chapter 21, parallel passage. What David is doing here is inadvertently, as it were, making further preparations for the building of the house as God promised in the covenant. Remember, we saw how David undertook at the very beginning to start acquiring materials for the sanctuary, primarily through his tribute that he received from the nations he had conquered. But now he's inadvertently acquiring the piece of ground upon which the sanctuary will be built. 1 Chronicles 21, let's pick this up at verse 28. At that time, when David saw that the Lord had answered him on the threshing floor of Ornan the Jebusite, he offered sacrifice there. For the tabernacle of the Lord which Moses had made in the wilderness and the altar of burnt offering were in the high place at Gibeon at that time. But David could not go before it to inquire of God, for he was terrified by the sword of the angel of the Lord. And then David said, this is the house of the Lord God. And this is the altar of burnt offering for Israel. We talked about how there continued the other tabernacle at Gibeon, even though he built a tabernacle there at Jerusalem. There were two tabernacles until the temple was built. But David is saying, this now is going to be the house of God. This is going to be the place where the offerings will be made. So he gave orders to gather the foreigners who were in the land of Israel, and he set stone cutters to hew out stones to build the house of God. And he prepared large quantities of iron to make the nails for the doors, for the gates, for the clamps, and more bronze than could be weighed. verse 5, and David said, My son Solomon is young and inexperienced, and the house that is to be built for the Lord shall be exceedingly magnificent, famous and glorious throughout all the lands. Therefore I will make preparation for it. So he made ample preparations before his death. The immediate implication of what happens in 2 Samuel 24 is that David is making preparations. He's acquiring the piece of ground where the temple is to be built. And so God's plague providentially served the cause of the temple. It served the goal of His promise of the temple in Jerusalem. Well, in terms of temporal fulfillment at least, that shows us again that God has not rejected His covenant with David. The house is still to be built. Solomon will build the house. So the covenant, at least in its temporal aspects, has not been done away with. And many simply leave their understanding there. They say, wow, look at how God provided for the Temple Mount. But the Davidic covenant has two horizons, right? The Davidic covenant first looks to an immediate son, an immediate house, Its components have a near-term fulfillment. But David also understood when God made the covenant with him. He said, I thank you that you have spoken of things pertaining to the distant future. David knew that the covenant looked beyond Solomon in the building of the temple in Jerusalem. So the first fulfillment, the first realization involving Solomon in the temple would only serve to further would serve to promote and to, in a sense, develop and project out the promise of the covenant towards the ultimate fulfillment that is to come. So there's this immediate implication that this is securing the physical site that the temple will be built. But there are greater implications and that's where I want to spend the rest of the time today. As we consider what's happening here within the covenant's larger frame of reference, and this does implicate the covenant, This episode in its particulars provide a very significant addition or development in the revelation that God has given in the Davidic Covenant. Just a few observations as we begin to flesh this out. The first thing that I want you to know as kind of a frame of reference is that the text attributes God's decision to withdraw His hand. It attributes that to David's intercession and sacrifice. Look again at verse 25. And David built there an altar to the Lord and offered burnt offerings and peace offerings. And thus the Lord was moved by the entreaty for the land and the plague was held back from Israel. Now it's true that the writer presents God with telling his angel to stay his hand. The text records that before it records David's intercession. When David said, Let this come upon me in my house. What have these sheep done? It records God withholding his hand before it records David's petition and certainly David's sacrifice. But I believe that the narrative does that because it's not a matter of chronology, it's a matter of emphasis. In other words, the writer wants us to see these two components in sharp relief. God's decision to relent, God's determination to withdraw his judgment, and also David's intercession. His intercession in petition and his intercession in sacrifice. But it's not until the very last statement of Samuel that we understand the relationship between them. David's petition, we see, is in the context or contributes to the context of God staying his hand. But we don't know the exact relationship until we get to the end of the book. David's petition, this is the point of that, David's petition, framed by his priestly work in offering the sacrifices, moved the Lord to withdraw his punishment from his land and from his people. David said, take your hand off of these people who have done nothing and put it upon me. And the way that God answered David's petition was to tell him to engage in a priestly act on behalf of the nation. And the writer deals with these individual components individually in that way, separately, and brings them together in that relationship at the end so that we catch that dynamic. The question the text is asking is not, is God sovereign? But how is it that David is acting Again, in the broader frame of the covenant and David's role within Israel, how is he acting in relation to the judging hand of God, even as it's now coming against Jerusalem? So that's the first thing that I want to put in front of you as an observation to build some of these implications. The second is, again, to remind you of this issue with the covenant of the house, the twofold aspect of the house promise. God is going to build a house for David, David's son is going to build a house for God. There's a house for David, a house for God. And both of those aspects of fulfillment are what? Bound up in a son. A son of David. A son of David is to build Yahweh's house, and God is going to build David's house through this son. Well, the initial point of fulfillment in that double promise is Solomon. God begins to build David's dynasty, David's house. He establishes David's kingdom through this son Solomon, and Solomon builds the house for God, the temple in Jerusalem. But there's more to it than that. But that's another observation I want to put back in your minds again as we're pulling out these implications. Another thing I want you to see as an observation is that David didn't connect his purchase of the threshing floor with the temple until after the offerings. That's what we read in 1 Chronicles. He's going to Aranah now to buy the threshing floor simply to obey God's directive through Gad that he build an altar and offer sacrifices to God in that place. He's not buying that piece of ground thinking, wow, this is where the temple is going to be built. It's not until afterwards as he puts the pieces together of what this event means. God's hand coming against Jerusalem, the place where his name is, the place where he's established David Holtz, the central sanctuary. And now in that place, David is interceding and God is relenting. It's after that that he says, this is to be the place. This is to be the exact site. So at the moment that he's going up to Arana, his only intent is to fulfill the Lord's command. In other words, in the flow of the narrative here, David had petitioned God to allow him to bear the stroke in the place of the people. David said, let your judgment be upon me and my house. And God granted his plea, God granted his petition, by directing him to intercede for them by means of an appointed sacrifice. A sacrifice at the place of judgment. David turned away the Lord's anger from Israel by his priestly ministration in offering up a prescribed acceptable sacrifice. Those are some observations about what's happening in the text, and hopefully your minds are already going out and saying, wow, I can begin to see where some of this is going. So in terms of a near-term significance of what David has done as an implication, a near-term significance is that what David is doing here clearly is prefiguring the priestly work that will occur on that site in connection with the temple. David is standing there and offering his sacrifice as a priest on behalf of Israel at the very site where the temple will stand, where the sacrifices will be made, where Israel's relationship with God will be mediated. That's what David is saying in 1 Chronicles. This is to be the place. And again, this text also, as a near-term significance, makes it explicit to us the fact that what David anticipated is in fact going to come true. David understood God's purpose to build a central sanctuary, and he believed Jerusalem was that place. God had told through Moses, when you get into the land, when you conquer the land, I will show you the place where you are to meet with me, where I will meet with you. And David believed Jerusalem was that place. And now God has shown to him through this event David has become, in his own mind, convinced that this house is to be located now in Jerusalem and more narrowly on Arana's threshing floor, Mount Moriah, the place that at least traditionally is associated with Abraham's sacrifice of Isaac. And the text indicates that. But again, there's an ultimate significance. All of these things look to near-term fulfillment. They have an implication for Solomon, for the first level fulfillment of the covenant. But the scope of the covenant goes way beyond Solomon. And we have to understand that. Yes, the Davidic covenant implicated the temple. Yes, it implicated the Temple Mount. Yes, it implicated Solomon and the historical building of the temple, the building of the house. But it went beyond that. And so David's activities, what's happening in this account, must be seen to have a prophetic significance beyond simply what will happen in the next generation with Solomon in Jerusalem. Hopefully that's already evident to you. But as we look at a few more of the particulars of the passage, this begins to flesh out. What is the ultimate significance, the ultimate implication of this passage? Well, the first thing that the writer does towards fleshing this out, the ultimate implication, is that he's careful to introduce into this narrative the shepherd sheep motif. I don't know if you noticed that. But if you look, when David stands and petitions God, he says in verse 17, Behold, it is I who have sinned, it is I who have done wrong, but these sheep, what have they done? What have they done? By referring to Israel as sheep, David is clearly implying his own role as Israel's shepherd. Yahweh's role as shepherd as well. Shepherd is a common leadership designation in the Bible. It's a very rich idea, motif. But it's a common leadership designation. It has its preeminent expression in God Himself. Psalm 23. The Lord is my shepherd. Yahweh was the shepherd of Israel. It implies care. It implies concern. It implies selfless sacrifice. It implies protection, feeding. It implies all of those sorts of ideas. The text wants us to see this shepherd sheep motif. And as it's associated with the idea of kingship, particularly associated with David as a human king. David is the shepherd of Israel. David is the shepherd of Israel. And I think there are two points to this, two reasons at least that the writer introduces this idea. The first is that he wants us, he wants his readers to understand David's intercession in pastoral terms. Pastoral ideas are shepherd ideas. The shepherd, the pastor is the poimain. He's the shepherd. It's a pastoral idea. In other words, it was as the faithful shepherd of Israel that David is now standing as the shepherd of God's flock. David is now standing and seeking to take the rod in their place. He's the shepherd of Yahweh's flock, and it's as the shepherd of the sheep that he is seeking to take the rod in their place. But this implicates, secondly, the covenant. It has a pastoral idea, but it very pointedly implicates the covenant. Because when God began to give his covenant to David, what did he say? I took you from the sheepfold to shepherd my people Israel. The shepherd idea is very much bound up in the Davidic covenant. So David, as the shepherd of Israel, is now standing and, in a sense, intervening for the sheep, just as he did with his father's flock. He said, when predatory animals came against my father's sheep, I went and I snatched them from their mouths. I protected my father's sheep. And he's doing the same thing here. But it's in the shepherd idea as it ties to the covenant that I think the ultimate significance of this passage begins to flesh itself out. The covenant promised a seed. David is the shepherd and the covenant promised a seed, right? And ultimately, it becomes more and more clear as time goes on that David finds his own fulfillment, his own significance in relation to that seed. At the point of the covenant, it's not ultimately explicit, except that God does say, I will establish your throne, your house, your kingdom in the sun. This son becomes really the extension of David's throne, David's house, David's kingdom. And from the point of the Davidic covenant, the scripture is unapologetic about referring to that individual under the name David. I'm not going to take the time today to look at some of those passages, but they're in the notes. But several times, God says, I'm going to send David. And particularly in Ezekiel 34, God is finding fault with the shepherds of Israel who have abused the people. They have been leaders according to the procedure of the king. They eat the tender grass and they trample the rest down. They drink the unstirred, unspoiled waters and then they muddy the rest with their feet. So they take the best and they use it for themselves and they exploit and hurt and destroy the sheep. That's Ezekiel 34. And God says, I'm done with the shepherds. I won't let them shepherd my sheep anymore. I'm going to come. I will shepherd my sheep. I will be the shepherd of my people. But God says, I will come and shepherd my people in David. I'm going to send David. This is 400 years, more than 400 years, after David died. But God says, I'm going to send David. The covenant implies and implicates this idea of a shepherd. One who will come and lead the people. Yahweh's shepherd. So the point is that the text intends for David's intercession as the shepherd of Israel. tending and interceding and caring for God's flock, David's intercession is to be understood ultimately as prefiguring the same work in the promised covenant seed. David, who is the anointed, beloved shepherd of Israel, God said, I have taken you to shepherd my people Israel, and that will be perpetuated in your son in this seed. He will be a shepherd. David is interceding on behalf of the sheep, pleading with the Lord of the Covenant to strike Him in the place of the sheep. And the day would come when the Son of David will stand and He will say what? I am the Good Shepherd. The Good Shepherd lays down His life for the sheep. All who came before me were not shepherds. They were thieves. They came to kill and to destroy. They were hirelings. A hireling doesn't care about the sheep. He's a day laborer. He does what he does for a paycheck. It's the procedure of the king. The hireling doesn't care about the sheep. So if there's danger, if there's trouble, if there's a threat, He flees. He doesn't care for the sheep. Jesus said, I am the good shepherd. David's work here is to teach us something about, remember, this is all set in God affirming that the covenant is continuing. And so it's telling us something about how God is going to be working out this promise of the covenant. We can see in David what's going to be in this son who is the continuation of David. Another issue that helps us to understand this is David's comment explaining his refusal to just accept this property and these oxen. He says, I will not offer to the Lord what cost me nothing. Now, David is going to offer these oxen that Aaron provides, and he's going to offer it on an altar that he builds, but he's going to purchase them at full price. In other words, David is going to stand in the gap for the sheep and he's going to offer this sacrifice to God by which the plague will be stopped. He's going to do this at great personal cost. And this is important to the typology of the event. David's not going to offer to God what costs him nothing. Now David David secures and accomplishes this sacrifice that stays God's hand. It moves God to withdraw His punishment upon the people and the land. And David does that through his own commitment of personal resource. And that ties him again to this one who is to come. But the one who is to come won't just purchase these things, but he himself will be the fulfillment of it all. it will be the sacrifice of himself. It will fulfill all offering, all sacrifice. And then finally, and this is the end, the location is very important. It's no accident that David sees the angel poised to destroy Jerusalem, which will come to epitomize God's kingdom, God's purpose, God's fulfillment of His promise. The whole theology of Zion is going to come out of Jerusalem, and we'll be looking at that in the months ahead. But the site specifically is Aaron's threshing floor. That's where David sees this angel poised. That's where he builds the altar. That's where he stands in the gap. That's the place of judgment. And that site is important because not only is it now to be the site of the temple, but it's important that it's a threshing floor. What is a threshing floor? It's a big, open, flat piece of ground. It's a place where farmers would cut down the grain and they would transport it and they would drop it on the ground on the threshing floor. And then they would have oxen or other beasts of burden walk and trample the sheaves. And as they would trample it, they would separate, they would crush the sheaves, they would crush the heads of grain, and it would allow the grain to be liberated from the stalks, from the chaff. And then the people would go in there with forks, and they would throw it up into the air when it was windy. And the chaff, the stalks, the dried stalks, the shells, were less dense. They were lighter. The wind would drive it away and the grain would fall back to the ground. The point of a threshing floor was to winnow the grain from the chaff. And the process of winnowing becomes in the scripture a metaphor for God's judgment. The process by which God distinguishes between those who are His and those who are not His. We'll just look at one very quick example. Hopefully you're very familiar with this theme already. But take a look at Psalm 1. How blessed is the man who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked. who does not stand together in the path with sinners. He does not sit together. He does not align himself with scoffers. Rather, his delight is in the Torah of Yahweh. The revealed truth and instruction of the Lord. And in that law, he meditates day and night. And so, he will be like a tree firmly planted by streams of water. A tree that's planted by water never dries out. It has a constant resource of vitality in life. And so it yields its fruit in season. Its leaf does not wither. Whatever such a man does, he prospers in it. But the wicked are not so. They are like the chaff which the wind drives away. Therefore, the wicked will not stand in the judgment, nor will sinners have a place in the assembly of the righteous. For Yahweh knows the way of the righteous, but the way of the wicked will perish." Winnowing. Winnowing. This imagery is used in the Old Testament again of the way God winnows His people. His judgment. But it takes on special significance in relation to this idea of the day of the Lord. That's the day when God comes and winnows for a final time. When God will come and winnow the earth. When God will come and He will separate the wheat from the chaff and establish His everlasting kingdom. He promises that day of winnowing. And when John introduces Jesus as the forerunner, he presents Him to Israel. He says, behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. And His winnowing fork is in His hand. he will thoroughly clear the Lord's threshing floor. He will gather the wheat into the barns, and he will burn the chaff with unquenchable fire. The day of the Lord's winnowing. And so, Aaron's threshing floor is also a place of divine judgment. It's the place where God stood poised to destroy Jerusalem. And in that way, as you implicate the covenant, destroy the promise bound up in that. Because this is to be the place where Yahweh is met. He's, in a sense, poised to destroy the place of his sanctuary. And in that place of judgment, David stands. The place where God's wrath justly displayed against these men with whom he's indignant. He stands in that place and he turns aside God's judgment, God's wrath, through the self-sacrifice that he presents. as the faithful shepherd of the sheep. There's more I wanted to say, but I want to just end by again encouraging all of you to keep all of these contexts in the larger storyline. To keep your reading, your interpretation within the larger storyline of the scripture. It's so easy for us to become very narrowly focused, and the result of that is that our knowledge of Christ becomes impoverished. I'm not saying that you can't be saved if you don't know these things, but the whole idea that we're Christians, we care about the New Testament, is absurd in many ways. It's absurd, number one, because it misses the fact that Jesus says all of the scripture, meaning the Old Testament, testifies of me. And the extension of that is that how can we be people of the New Testament if we don't know the Old Testament? How can you understand these themes and these ideas and these motifs that are brought in a very powerful way in the New Testament if you don't see them in the Old? Because Jesus comes, and the way He presents Himself, and the way the writers present Him, they're showing that He is that One. When He says, I'm the shepherd of the sheep, it means something. When John presents him as the one who is winnowing the Lord's wheat and chaff, it means something. We can't understand those themes if we don't keep everything within the bigger flow. We can't get at what it is that God is ultimately wanting us to see. Let me just read a very familiar passage to you, but read it again now in the light of David. We're finished with David. All that David represents in the movement of salvation history up to him and his time, and then where David himself has defined his own fulfillment. Even as the one who the scripture uses to epitomize this idea of the king-priest. David ends his career effectively as the priest, the king-priest. at the place of judgment. David offers the sacrifice that stays God's anger against his people, his just indignation, by his own priestly work at the place of winnowing, the place of judgment. In Revelation chapter 5, I believe that the book that is spoken of here, it represents God's purpose what God has determined to do, what God has determined to accomplish in this thing we call redemption. And John, in his vision of heaven, he says, I saw in the right hand of Him who sat on the throne a book written inside and on the back, sealed with seven seals. And I saw a strong angel proclaiming with a loud voice, Who is worthy to open the book and to break its seals? In other words, who is worthy to be the point of fulfillment? Who's worthy to accomplish what this book speaks of and what it sets forth? Who can bring this to fruition? Who is able to see that God's work and His purpose would be realized? And no one, no one in heaven or on the earth or under the earth was able to open the book or gaze into it. And I began to weep greatly. There's no one who can fulfill God's promise. This is over and over again in the Old Testament. Impossibility. No one who can do it. David is the great hope. David fails. Solomon will fail. Abraham failed. Everybody fails. Everything fails. And John is weeping because he says there's no hope. There is no one who can fulfill God's purpose. Isaiah 59 And one of the elders said to me, he's weeping. This is the idea of crying out in great agony. And one of the elders said, stop crying out. Stop weeping. Behold, who? The lion of the tribe of Judah. The true David. The great David. He is the root of David. In Isaiah, he's called the stem of Jesse and the root of Jesse. He's the source of Jesse. He's a fruit of Jesse. But here he's called the root of David. He's the one that David himself portrayed. That lion has overcome so as to open the book and its seven seals. How does he do that? How is it in this imagery of opening the book? How does he accomplish God's purpose? How does the Lion of Judah, how does the true David do that? And John looks and he sees between the throne and between the elders, he sees a lamb. They tell him the Lion of Judah, the root of David has prevailed. But what John sees is a lamb, a sacrificial lamb. A lamb standing as if it had been slain, having seven horns and seven eyes, which are the seven spirits of God sent out into all the earth. And he came and he took it out of the right hand of him who sat on the throne. And as soon as he takes the book, all of the four living creatures, the 24 elders, fall down before him. And they begin to sing. They have the golden bowls of incense, which are the prayers of the saints, and they begin to sing. a new song, the song of fulfillment, the song of accomplishment. Worthy are thou to take the book and to break its seals. For you were slain and you purchased for God with your blood men from every tribe and tongue and people and nation. And you have made them to be a kingdom and priests to our God. And they will reign upon the earth. And I looked and I heard the voice of many angels around the throne and the living creatures, the elders. The number of them was myriads of myriads and thousands of thousands, saying with a loud voice, worthy is the Lamb who was slain to receive power and riches and wisdom and might and honor and glory and blessing. And every created thing which is in heaven and on the earth and under the earth and on the sea, the implication is every created thing. I heard saying to Him who sits on the throne and to the Lamb, be blessing and honor and glory and dominion forever and ever. And the four living creatures kept saying, Amen, Amen, Amen. It is true. It is so. It is so. It is so. And the elders fell down in worship." Would you connect Revelation 5 with 2 Samuel 24? Would you even connect it with David? Would you connect it with David's life, with David's work? It's by knowing David that we know Christ. Again, I'm not saying you can't be saved knowing nothing about the Old Testament, but your faith will be impoverished. And the church is weak and sick and anemic today because it knows nothing beyond four spiritual laws. God has given us Torah. He has given us His instruction that we might be enriched by it, that our faith might be solid, might be firm, that we might be able to continue in this gospel because we know it, because we believe it, because we're strengthened by it. Let's pray. Father, connect the pieces Even as you're constructing this mosaic in our minds, a mosaic that you constructed on the stage of salvation history for ages and generations, but you've been pleased to record it, that we upon whom the ends of the ages have come might know how we got to where we are. That in seeing the systematic, progressive, sure, construction of the mosaic, we would understand the one who is portrayed in it. That we would know whom we have believed. Not merely a Jesus of a tract, but the one in whom all things find their meaning, their significance, their efficacy, their power, their truth. Father, strengthen us in these things. Give us a faith that's real. Give us a hope that's vital. Give us a confidence that's grounded in a true knowledge of this one, the root and stem of Jesse, the King of Kings and Lord of Lords. who has stayed Your hand by the sacrifice of Himself, who reigns as a priest upon His throne. How can we doubt? How can we fear when we have such a King? We thank You, Father, for this great mercy. Give us grace to live into it. We ask in Christ's name. Amen.