2 Samuel chapter 24. And the slice of bread we're going to take today is verses 10 through 17. And David's heart condemned him after he had numbered the people. So David said to the Lord, I have sinned greatly in what I have done. But now I pray, O Lord, take away the iniquity of your servant, for I have done very foolishly. Now when David arose in the morning, The word of the Lord came to the prophet Gad, David's seer, saying, go and tell David, thus says the Lord, I offer you three things. Choose one of them for yourself that I may do it to you. So Gad came to David and told him, and he said to him, shall seven years of famine come to you in your land? Or shall you flee three months before your enemies while they pursue you? Or shall there be three days plague in your land? Now consider and see what answer I should take back to him who sent me. David said to Gad, I am in great distress. Please let us fall into the hand of the Lord, for his mercies are great, but do not let me fall into the hand of man." So the Lord sent a plague upon Israel from the morning till the appointed time. From Dan to Beersheba, 70,000 men of the people died. And when the angel stretched out his hand over Jerusalem to destroy it, the Lord relented from the destruction and said to the angel who was destroying the people, it is enough. Now restrain your hand. And the angel of the Lord was by the threshing floor of around now the Jebusite. And David spoke to the Lord when he saw the angel who was striking the people and said, surely I have sinned and I have done wickedly, but these sheep, what have they done? Let your hand, I pray, be against me and against my father's house. Father, we thank you for your word. We pray that as we study it, as we respond to it, that the meditations of our hearts would be acceptable in your sight. Do anoint both the preaching and the hearing of your word. We pray in Christ's name, amen. Well, as you know, Ebola has been in the news a great deal recently. Some people think that the government is covering up the degree to which it can spread. And with a confusion and a lack of information, sometimes there is fear that accompanies that. And people are wondering, you know, to what degree can it be spread? Is it contagious? Can you catch it by Breathing the air that somebody else is breathing or touching a doorknob that this person has touched or is it simply spread through bodily fluids as one? CDC bulletin has said and even they have been somewhat inconsistent and the various bulletins that they have sent out One bulletin said that you can't catch it through Breathing the same air, but they another bulletin said but you can catch it by breathing the air when somebody has sneezed and Another bulletin admitted that the Zaire Ebola virus, quote, can survive on surfaces such as doorknobs and countertops for several hours. But for the most part, I think they've been trying to calm the public, and maybe rightly so. Time will tell. But what has made some people nervous is contradictory information that's been coming out from other sources. For example, the Journal of Applied Microbiology published a research paper that stated, Zaire Ebola virus can survive for long periods in different liquid media and can also be recovered from plastic and glass surfaces at low temperatures for over three weeks. The Public Health Agency of Canada stated that their research shows that at ambient temperature, 37% of the viruses were still alive after 15.4 hours. And quote, when dried in tissue culture media onto glass and stored at four degrees centigrade, Zaire Ebola virus survived for over 50 days. So there is conflicting evidence and a lot of uncertainty that's swirling around Ebola. But whatever the dangers of Ebola may end up being, There are plenty of other bacteria and viruses that have produced deadly plagues down through Earth's history. And you can think of the smallpox plague that killed over 300 million people since the year 1800, or the Spanish influenza, which killed an estimated 100 million people in a two-year period of time, 1918 to 1919. or the bubonic plague, which had an estimated death rate of about 100 million people. And there's a number of other diseases that have been deadly enough that they could legitimately be labeled a plague. Now, plague is something, it's a disease that's deadly enough and infectious enough that it has a wide-scale infection rate and a high mortality rate. Now, our passage does not say everything that needs to be said about plagues. There are other passages that talk about the importance of quarantine laws. The Bible also speaks about the importance of civic officers as well as church officers dealing with the plague. But this passage at least answers some of the questions that have been coming into the minds of people over the last few weeks. And the first question that I want to ask the text is this. Who made the deadly bacteria and viruses? And I think if you believe the Bible, the answer is fairly straightforward. God did. And you could ask, well, who made our immune systems to be so vulnerable to some of these bacteria and viruses? And the Bible gives the same answer. God did. Who made some bacteria much more deadly than other bacteria and viruses the same? And God did. Uh, the, the, the, the issue is that nothing is outside of God's control and that can either bring fear into your heart or it can bring comfort to your heart, depending upon your standing with the Lord. But verse 12 is quite clear. God tells the prophet. Go and tell David, thus says the Lord, I offer you three things. Choose one of them for yourself that I may do it to you. And if you take a look at verse 15, it says, so the Lord sent a plague. So God's person and his purpose stood behind that plague. It was not just random. And there are a lot of Christians that have heartburn over that. They have a hard time even believing it. I talked to a PCA elder who said that he was skeptical that typhoons and earthquakes and plagues could in any way be the result of God's judgment or purpose. While he affirmed that God was sovereign, He denied that there could be a purpose or a design behind those disasters. It was really a strangely deistic kind of a perspective on disaster. And his reasoning was that these modern disasters just seemed to be too arbitrary. to have design behind it. And we need to leave this in the realm of science. And he didn't realize what a contradiction that was. If it is really so random and so arbitrary, then science couldn't explain it at all, could it? But in any case, when I pointed out some of the Old Testament scriptures that showed that God himself was bringing earthquakes, plagues, famine, other disasters, his response amazed me. He said, well, yeah, that was back in the Old Testament, and that was the period when there were miracles. He believed that God intervened in nature back then, but he does not do so today. And I pointed to the book of Revelation that was predicting the future and saying that God himself was bringing earthquakes and hail and plagues and other things like that in the future upon both Israel and pagan nations, but it didn't seem to phase him. He said, that's back then. We deal now with these things in terms of science. Thank you. Well, yeah, science can explain how a baby comes along, but that does not mean that God does not create and design every baby. Science can explain how we get rain, but scripture is quite clear that it's God who keeps rain away from a region or who brings rain to a region. Science can explain gravity and nuclear physics and cell division, but that does not in any way contradict the scripture that says God is working all of those things together for the good of his people. And the anomalies that are in each of those fields that science cannot explain, at least cannot explain yet, to me just points to the fact that this is not a deistic world where God sets certain laws in motion and then he leaves. And those laws are working without any purpose, they just keep on working. No, those anomalies show that yes, while God is bringing A certain order and the regularity of how he deals with nature, the anomalies demonstrate that God can deviate from his normal way of doing things anytime that he chooses to do so if it suits his purposes. But his providential governing is behind it all. And so it's a big mistake to pit human responsibility and science against God's providence. Now God does want us to understand disease. And he does want us to take dominion over disease. But the fact that we wear masks and take precautions does not guarantee our safety, as certain health care workers have discovered. And even when we are exposed to disease did not mean we will catch that disease as other people and healthcare workers have discovered. You cannot rule God out of a creation that he has said he will continue to rule by his providence. He continues to afflict and he continues to protect. Now, the main thing I want you to understand under this first point is that these invisible armies of viruses and bacteria are His servants, and they march at His orders, and they accomplish His purposes. I think the text is quite clear on that. They are not random, meaningless events that are outside of His control. In fact, if you read Deuteronomy 28 in your family this afternoon, you will discover an enormous array of things that God brings to accomplish His purposes in His people's lives. He says that when there are entire cultures who are willing to obey His laws, that God will bring health and prosperity, but when entire cultures begin to disrespect God, to defy Him and to defy His laws, He's going to start making all kinds of things start falling apart. And initially, it'll be just on the irritation level, but when repentance is not forthcoming, in Deuteronomy 28, He says He'll bring plagues upon that society, verse 21. Consumption, fear, inflammation, sword, blight, and mildew in verse 22. Lack of rain, verse 24. Losing wars, verse 25. Boils, tumors, itchy skin, verse 27. Mental health issues, verse 28. Marriage and family problems, verses 30 through 33. And you keep reading, you just see a whole host of things that are a part of God's tools, his arsenal, for bringing discipline, judgments upon nations. All of those things are under his providential control, and we slander God's providence when we interpret it any other way. Now, as you've noticed, I'm not going through the passage in the order that the verses occur this morning. I'm going to cover every verse, but I want to examine the passage analytically by asking a number of questions, and the first question's already been answered. Who made these things? And the text indicates that God did. You may struggle with that, but our God is the God who brings diseases into cultures and to individual lives. You could not even get a cold, a common cold without God's permission. Impossible. You can't get it. You can't get over it without his permission. And therefore, God must be the first one that we go to when we get a cold or we get any other kind of a disease, not the doctor. Now we should go to doctors, Bible speaks positively of doctors, but we need to be going prayerfully to the doctors and only after we have first humbled ourselves before God and said, Lord, would you please heal me? We are dependent upon you. We live and move and have our being in you. 2 Chronicles 16 verse 12 speaks very poorly of King Asa because he went to doctors without seeking for God's help. He went to doctors rather than to the Lord for his foot disease. So that's the first thing. Are we analyzing Ebola in a God-centered way? Are we praying to Him about that and about all other diseases that come our way? On the second question, while some people might agree that God's providence covers these things, they will insist that God never brings sickness by his own divine intervention. Instead, they will say that God allows all diseases by allowing Satan to bring it. It's a permissive providence. And there is a certain logic in that. God does do this at times. We even saw that last week. There is a permissive aspect to providence. we saw with regard to sin. It's under his control, but he is not directly involved. And so the argument that they bring is that just as verse one says that God moved David, So there is no denial of God's providence, just as God by his providence moved David, but he did not do it directly. He moved David by giving permission to Satan to move David's heart. Well, in the same way, they will argue that God uses second causes for disease. Now that's a legitimate argument. And if that's as far as they went, I wouldn't even bother arguing with them on it. But they insist that God himself could never do so since all disease is by definition, their definition, demonic in origin. They claim that it is never God's will for us to be sick, okay? They cannot fathom a disease coming from God's hand. It has to be demonic as far as they are concerned. But that is taking the argument way too far and treating disease as if it is evil or sinful in itself. And I want you to take a look at verses 16 through 17. This does indeed speak of an angelic being as somehow involved in the spread of the disease. But I want you to notice it's not a fallen angel. Okay. God could have used a fallen angel, but in this case, it was the angel of the Lord who was directly involved. And when the angel stretched out his hand over Jerusalem to destroy it, the Lord relented from the destruction and said to the angel who was destroying the people, it is enough. Now restrain your hand. And the angel of the Lord was by the threshing floor of Araunah the Jebusite. Then David spoke to the Lord when he saw the angel who was striking the people and said, surely I have sinned and I have done wickedly, but these sheep, what have they done? Let your hand, I pray, be against me and against my father's house. Now obviously, David didn't think it strange to attribute disease to the hand of God. He did not think it strange at all that God himself could bring disease on him or upon anybody else. So there are several things that are clear from this passage. First of all, it is clear that God willed this disease to come as an act of discipline. Second, it is clear that the angel of the Lord was involved. Third, the angel of the Lord is not merely pointing. saying, okay, you demons, you can go over there and do your work, don't go over here. He's not just pointing where others people can go, but verse 17 makes it quite clear that the angel of the Lord was striking the people himself. Now, whether you see the angel of the Lord as being the pre-incarnate Son of God, as many people take it, Because angel means messenger and the pre-incarnate Son of God is called the Word of God is called the messenger of God the angel of the Lord and other passages so whether you take it as the pre-incarnate Son of God or you take it as a created angel either way It's still quite clear that This disease is under the control of God and his armies. In fact, one of the dictionaries TWOT said Quote, aside from about five instances, all uses of devere, that's the word for plague, all uses of devere relate to pestilence as sent by God as punishment. So it clearly was God's will for the people to be afflicted by that disease. And this is true of many other diseases as well. While Satan does indeed bring some diseases, Deuteronomy 28 makes it quite clear that God can bring diseases too. God instantaneously afflicted Miriam with the disease of leprosy because of her rebellion, And there's no indication he used a secondary cause. Come over here, demon, and afflict Miriam. God instantaneously afflicted her. It was God's hand. In Leviticus 14.34, God says that He is the one who brings that ruinous black mold into homes to make those homes utterly unusable. Deuteronomy 7.15 says He afflicts with disease. In Exodus 4.11, God says, Who has made man's mouth? Or who makes the mute, the deaf, the seeing, or the blind? Have not I, the Lord? You see, you cannot gain comfort from Romans 8.28 if you do not come to grips with the fact that God not only can, but He does afflict people with disease. Now, sometimes he does use secondary agents like angels or demons, and sometimes he does it personally. Now, in terms of our passage, another reason it's important to understand this is that it shows that demons cannot touch you, angels cannot touch you, viruses cannot touch you without God's permission. Okay? Should we take precautions? Well, of course, yes. We've been commanded to take dominion of all things and taking precautions is a part of taking dominion of life. But we must do so in faith that there is a divine purpose behind Ebola and every other plague. And God can protect his Davids and his Aaronas even in the midst of the plague. They were both at the epicenter of this plague. And we'll talk about that in a bit. But panic is a sign of lack of faith. Presumption and failure to take precaution is a sign of lack of responsibility. And we need to avoid both extremes of unbelief as well as of testing God. God calls us to respond to national calamities or potential calamities as David did. Now before we get to his responses, there's another question that I want to ask. Is there a relationship between sin and national calamity today? Many Christians deny it. They'll admit, yeah, that happened in the Old Testament. We'll see with the case of David, it clearly was the case. Calamities and diseases can come for any number of purposes. And I've got a paper called Biblical Sufferology that shows a whole bunch of reasons for why God brings disease. It's not only for discipline over sin. But clearly in the Bible, I just want to demonstrate that judgment for sin is one of the most frequent reasons why God brings disasters, calamities, plagues upon nations. In fact, that was the first impulse of the heart of the Puritans and the pilgrims. is to fall on their knees before God and say, Lord, why are you bringing this? We repent of our sins. They humbled themselves before God. In Solomon's prayer for the temple, when he was dedicating the temple, he was saying, Lord, any time you bring plague upon a nation and they turn to you, they look to this temple and they pray to you, would you hear them and heal? Okay, so that was his take, was that should be the first impulse of our heart to at least examine to see, is there rebellion that the Lord is judging us for? Anyway, take a look at verse 10. And David's heart condemned him after he had numbered the people. So David said to the Lord, I have sinned greatly in what I have done, but now I pray, O Lord, take away the iniquity of your servant. For I have done very foolishly." So there's the sin that starts it all. And I want you to notice that the discipline does not come immediately after he sins. Okay? There's not like you sin and instantly you get zapped. It came nine and a half months later. Okay? So there is delay. But the text still makes clear that there is a cause and effect relationship. Even though God forgave David, there are consequences for his sin. And just as Deuteronomy speaks of an entire culture suffering in myriad ways for the sins of its leaders, this passage shows three potential consequences that could have happened in that year. Verses 12 and 13. Go and tell David, thus says the Lord, I offer you three things. Choose one of them for yourself that I may do it to you. So God came to David and told him, and he said to him, shall seven years of famine come to you and your land, or shall you flee three months before your enemies while they pursue you? Or shall there be three days of plague in your land? Now consider and see what answer I should take back to him who sent me. So famine. Death in war and plague are all possible consequences of national sin. And if you're trying to avoid some of the potential fallout of a nation's sins, you might not want to join the military. You know, that's one of the epicenters of God's judgments falling upon a nation is death and destruction in the military. Now, God can protect you in the military if you're a Joab or an Abishai, if that's where God wants you to be. We're going to be seeing God's protection anywhere where the safest place to be is in the center of God's will, right? So if God's called you in the military, he can protect you there. But it's clear that God can send a wide range of national catastrophes to discipline us for our sins. And it highlights the fact why It's very important we not ignore the sins of our nation, that we repent on behalf of our nation. But this highlights yet another question. We can understand why David would suffer, but why do others have to suffer? Why didn't God just discipline David? And we dealt with this last week to some degree, but let me review very quickly. First, it is appropriate for citizens to suffer along with their national leaders because of the covenant relationship that we are in with those national leaders. We are covenantally guilty of our covenant leader's sins. And it's important to understand that God deals with all of us and all of life in terms of the covenant. We can never escape from the covenant without, you know, the covenant relationship we have with the nation, without leaving the nation or at least disagreeing with the sins of our nation. And we'll get to that in a little bit. That's really the second reason. Second, it is appropriate for citizens to suffer along with their rulers when they do not vigorously resist the ungodly actions of the civil government. One of the slogans in 1776 was, resistance to tyrants is obedience to God. But the inverse of that is also true. If a population ignores the sins of their government, ignores its tyranny, If they are not resisting tyrants, they are disobeying God as a population. Another reason why God can judge a population for David's sins, even the public has a responsibility to oppose the lawless actions of government, whether those are abortion or homosexuality, economic theft, or anything else. So we saw last week that when Israel failed to resist the census, they were involved in its guilt. The third reason that it's appropriate for citizens to suffer for the sins of their leaders was already given in verse one. God used David's sin as an occasion to punish Israel for their own sins that they had already engaged in previously. Verse 1, again, the anger of the Lord was aroused against Israel and he moved David against them to say, go number Israel and Judah. God was angry with Israel. Why? They had engaged in sin. They were in rebellion in some way on their own. So they had their own guilt, and that meant they could not complain when God disciplines the population for the first two reasons. They've got their own third reason, so they can't complain when God disciplines them for the first two reasons. But I suspect the second reason was especially in God's mind, and it may help to explain why commentators say that the tribes of Levi and Benjamin didn't get judged. They didn't have any people that died because those two tribes had resisted the most stoutly against the census. They refused to be involved in it. And so I believe God does protect and bless citizens who are on the forefront of standing against the lawlessness of a nation. It's a great motivation to get involved in standing against tyranny. Now another question that came to my mind is this. Why did the repentance expressed in verse 10 and again in verse 17 not immediately stay God's hand of discipline? Another way of wording it is why this spiritual spanking when there was already repentance? And it's, I think, a worthwhile question to examine. Verse 10 again, David's heart condemned him after he had numbered the people. So David said to the Lord, I have sinned greatly in what I have done, but now I pray, O Lord, take away the iniquity of your servant for I have done very foolishly. So he's repented and yet God disciplines him. Why? Well, repentance restores to God's fellowship and to God's favor, but there are still other purposes for discipline that may need to take place, especially when the sin is as serious as heinous as we saw last week that his sin had been. Though discipline can be reduced to what it might otherwise have been, It still may need to take place if five things, purposes need to be fulfilled. We already saw this was the case in the Bathsheba sin, 2 Samuel 12, verses 13 through 15 says this. So David said to Nathan, I have sinned against the Lord. And Nathan said to David, the Lord also has put away your sin. You shall not die. So there was a reduction of the discipline. But verse 14 goes on to say, however, because by this deed you have given great occasion to the enemies of the Lord to blaspheme, the child also who is born to you shall surely die. Then Nathan departed to his house, and the Lord struck the child that Uriah's wife bore to David, and it became ill. So that discipline for the glory of God and to teach people the seriousness of sin was not completely done away with. We saw last week that the sin of the census was far more serious than most people in our population consider it to be. But there are other purposes for discipline as well, including correction and training, bringing fear of sin to others, bringing closure to an issue. And I think this is a point on which many parents fail. Some parents always withhold discipline from their child if their child repents. And I think it's a big mistake. Such a son can learn that he can rebel or lie or engage in anything serious. And so long as he repents, okay, he gets off the hook. There's no repercussions. Yet there is no closure in his heart. That's one of the purposes for discipline. He knows his rebellion has not been dealt with and the parent has missed out on the correction and the training side of discipline. By the way, the word disciple, discipleship, and discipline, they all come from the same root word. They're all very, very closely connected. Hebrews 12, verse 11. Now, no chastening seems to be joyful for the present, but painful. Nevertheless, afterward it yields the peaceable fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it." Okay, so there's a training aspect to discipline that is very, very important. So, for example, with a child who has lied to me as a parent. and has gotten caught, and after getting caught has confessed his sin, I might say, son, if you had confessed to lying without ever having been caught, there would have been a reduction, a significant reduction in the severity of this discipline. But because I had to once again catch you before you repented of this, it's still got to be quite severe. Now, when there is confession, I'll tell them, yes, there's a lessening of this discipline, but there's still going to be discipline in place for its training purpose. Now, the reason you reduce discipline when there is confession voluntarily given is because they're already learning what you're trying to train them in with discipline, right? But if that's not been happening or forthcoming, It still needs to come forward. So as an example, when God chastened Miriam with leprosy after her rebellion against, uh, Moses leadership, she repented, Aaron repented of the sin that, uh, that he had engaged in. And even Moses pleaded with God, please heal her. Oh God, I pray. And yet God refused to do so. He refused to lift the discipline. He made her be outside the camp with all the other lepers for seven days. So it's clear that the repentance lessened the severity of the discipline, but did not remove the need for that discipline. An interesting thing about that passage is he compares his discipline as to why he would do this to the discipline of a parent. So even with parental discipline, the idea is that repentance does not always do away with the need for the training of discipline. Now sometimes a child's restitution will be all the discipline that is needed. Zacchaeus repented of the extortion that he had engaged in as a tax collector, but he recognized that he needed to go through the painful process of restitution. That was probably all the discipline he needed. It was plenty painful. So it's important to understand that forgiveness of sin does not always remove the training of discipline that may need to take place. But my next question is this. Was it safe for David to go to the epicenter of that plague in verses 16 through 17? And actually David does something far more dangerous than going to the epicenter. He says, Lord, strike me with the plague rather than striking Israel with the plague. I'm the one who has sinned. So he's asking for something far more dangerous and he is definitely more concerned about Israel than he is his own life. And there is some analogy there to what Christian doctors and nurses do when they minister to plague patients. There's been a long history of Christians and pastors ministering to plague victims when everyone else has run away. And that is not a violation of the quarantine laws. If you read the quarantine laws in the Old Testament, you'll see that the priests were actually trained in how to deal with these nasty bugs, you know, these nasty diseases. And they were a part of the process of making sure this person was quarantined. Sometimes civic officers had to enforce the quarantines. So not everybody was completely away from those who were sick. But I've mentioned in the past that the historian Henry Chadwick has claimed that one of the major reasons for the success of the gospel in the first few centuries of the church was the way that Christians handled plagues. Very, very interesting. And earthquakes and other disasters, he's mentioned. But fearless Christians had a balance between taking precautions, which we must do, And yet trusting that God is sovereign over even plagues, the unseen nasties that are out there. And as a result of their ministry, countless thousands became Christian. So was it safe for David to go to the epicenter of this plague? Now, in one sense, no, it's not safe to go to the epicenter of the plague. But in another sense, the safest place to be is in the center of God's will. And when you are a doctor or a nurse or a civic officer who has a responsibility for dealing with some of these things, and God has put that calling upon you, he has burdened your heart as he burdened David's heart. then yes, the safest place to be is in the center of God's will. It's doing God's will, right? There is no safer place. Now we will be seeing next time that part of God's purpose in burdening David in this way was to show David the beginning of the fulfillment of his heart's desire to be able to see a temple for Almighty God. And actually, it's going to be on the place that he offers up the sacrifice, on this threshing floor around the Jebusite. And the last verses of this chapter show that purchasing of those temple grounds, the offering of a sacrifice, and it all points to Jesus, who is the ultimate priest king, to resolve the many political issues that we have looked at in this chapter, I mean, in this book. Now, I'm not going to dig into it very deeply, but let me summarize the issues involved in that last section. The remedy for national disasters like floods and hurricanes and earthquakes and droughts and plagues and possible terrorist attacks. is first of all repentance, repentance before Almighty God. The honest confession of sin in verse 10 by a national leader is key. His deep distress over the pain that he has brought to his people in verse 14 shows the seriousness of his repentance, the genuineness of it. His willingness to suffer in their place in verse 17 again accentuates the genuineness and the sincerity of his repentance. In verse 20, David's servants accompany him. But genuine repentance of a nation is key. Now, unfortunately, some of the calls for repentance by presidents of the United States have been insincere and to a generic God. That itself is an insult to the true God, Yahweh. Now, what kind of sacrifice is needed? Obviously, in verse 17, David's sacrifice was not sufficient. He was willing to lay down his life for his sheep. Now, that may point as a symbol, as a type of the Lord Jesus Christ who would be willing to lay down his life for the sheep, but at least it shows that he had the heart of Jesus Christ, as all pastors should and as all civic ministers should. But it was clear, Israel needed a greater substitute than David. And so God himself initiated the true answer. And all through this chapter, you see, God is the one who initiates. He's the one who sends the prophet to David in verse 11. He tells the angel in verse 16, okay, that's enough, hold back your hand. He sends the prophet again with a message of what to do, yeah? You gotta make a sacrifice. He's the one who shows the process of purchasing the temple grounds. And both temple and sacrifice point forward to the Lord Jesus who alone is the answer to the national calamities that come in various countries. But even this judgment was for Israel's good and shows the initiation of God's grace. Our country needs Jesus. Judgments sometimes make people flee to Jesus, as they did here. We call those redemptive judgments. Why? Because they produce redemption in people's lives. But that's not always the case. That is not always the case. Calamity apart from grace will not achieve genuine change. And I'll just give you two examples. Revelation 9 shows people tormented with providential judgments in the form of plagues, and they refuse to repent. Does VD sometimes scare people away from ungodly behavior? Yes, sometimes it does, but more often than not, people are so irrational, they will continue to do things despite the plagues and the divine judgments that God brings upon them. Anyway, with the judgments in Revelation 9, it was not a redemptive judgment that brought mercy. It was a condemnatory judgment that sent to hell. So Revelation 9, 20 through 21, but the rest of mankind who were not killed by these plagues did not repent of the works of their hands, that they should not worship demons and idols of gold, silver, brass, stone, and wood, which can either see nor hear nor walk. And they did not repent of their murders or their sorceries or their sexual immorality or their thefts. So it just highlights two different ways that people can respond to the national judgments that he brings upon a nation. They can repent or they can hate God all the more. And that's what happens in the Revelation 9 passage. It's not a foregone conclusion that the judgments God brings in America are going to be for our good. They could be just like happened in Europe where God plucks up the candlestick and removes his presence for generations because the church has been faithless. And that's why I keep emphasizing, we cannot be lackadaisical about the sins of our nation. We need to take what actions we can, but at least we need to pray. and lifted up before the Lord. Okay, the second example, Revelation 16, nine, shows much the same reaction to yet another plague. It says, and men were scorched with great heat, and they blasphemed the name of God who has power over these plagues. And they did not repent and give him glory. Unless God initiates, you're not going to see salvation. You're not going to see people coming to faith in Jesus Christ. The last verses of this chapter show that Jesus is needed for every aspect of political reform. We need the gospel and it's my hope and prayer that the judgments God's already been meeting out on America over the past decades would lead our nation to trust in Jesus Christ alone for its salvation. In other words, it's my prayer that the judgments we have already been experiencing would not be condemnatory judgments that remove His presence, but they would be redemptive judgments. May it be so, Lord Jesus. Amen. Father God, we thank you for your word, the warnings that it gives, the solutions that it provides as well. And I pray that all across America, the Church of Jesus Christ would wake up to its need to repent, repent of its own lawlessness and turning away from the blueprints of scripture and that Father as you caused the church to be a David repenting on behalf of the nation that you would restore this nation into the kingdom of the Lord Jesus Christ and that you would cause a great glory to come to your name. We pray for your mercies to flow. We pray for your forgiveness that you would bring great conviction of sin upon our nation on every level and that men would not just look to politics and change, change, change to deal with the problems that they see, but they would look to you who alone can make the changes that are needed for judgment to be stayed. And so we pray for your mercies to flow and pray this in Jesus name, amen.