He did the prayers for the land and the plague was withdrawn from Israel. Amen. Father, we thank you for the scriptures that you have given to us and we pray as we dig into them that our hearts might be stirred with love and admiration for your great plan of salvation that we would ourselves receive it by faith not just for us but for our families and for our very culture. We love you and we continue to worship you as we look into your word in Jesus name. Amen. You may be seated. Now in the parallel passage in 1 Chronicles 21, God made very explicit what I think is still fairly obvious in our passage. Verse 25 here says that God accepted the sacrifice, but 1 Chronicles 21 shows how he accepted it. There was a miraculous blast of fire that came out of heaven and consumed, burnt up the entire sacrifice. And then David responds in 1 Chronicles 22 verse 1, this is the house of the Lord God, and this is the altar of burnt offering for Israel. In other words, David was purchasing the grounds for the future temple and he was offering the first sacrifice in that place for the temple. In other words, it's very explicitly tied to the temple. I think it's implicit here, but it's very explicitly stated that way. 1 Chronicles chapter 21. And thus the climax of all of 1 and 2 Samuel is the gospel as symbolized by both sacrifice and temple. It shows how everything in this book including politics needs to be seen through the lens of the gospel if it's to be acceptable in God's sight. Now I As I mentioned, this is not the end of David's life, but by ending the book this way, the author is making a big point. And during the introduction, I want to show how this has always been the inherent message in the tabernacle. Actually, I've been, in my reading through the Bible, I've been reading in Ezekiel about God's purposes for the temple and the tabernacle of old. And it was as a central A message designed to symbolize God's throne room and His rule over all of life through the gospel of Jesus Christ. That's what the tabernacle and the temple was all about. It was His throne room. and His rule over all of life through the sacrifice of Jesus Christ. And because it was over all of life, it was not just applied to individuals. It was also applied to governments. Now, in years past, everybody seemed to understand this. In the first, you know, probably 1,500 years of church history, they understood the corporate dimensions of the gospel, but we cannot take that for granted nowadays, and I want to really emphasize that. All governments, are going to be redeemed by God including family government. Let's just illustrate that in the temple. If you read through Numbers you will see that the tabernacle was smack dab in the middle of the camp and it mentions families being ordered all around it in their tribes to emphasize the fact that families were totally submitted to God's kingship. So when describing God's throne room in the middle of the camp, it mentions this family and that family and the other family, and they're all facing the temple. In effect, it's a symbolic representation of the fact that these families are coming before the Lord God and our submission to his throne. Secondly, 12 princes of the 12 tribes were required to bring their tribute to God's tabernacle. Actually, they spread it out over 12 days. So one prince would bring his tribute this day, and it was a long 12-day Hanukkah. It was the first Hanukkah, actually. And it was to symbolize the fact that civil government was in total submission to God as well through the gospel. And later on the temple actually had a place for the king would meet with God, again to symbolize the fact that all civics was supposed to bow before his kingship, but the only way he could successfully do so was through the gospel presented in this. Thirdly, synagogues all sent a tithe of the tithe that they received from the people. So all of those churches, they would send a tithe of the tithe that was the church's tribute to the temple and again it was symbolizing the fact that the church must completely submit to God's kingship through the gospel. The gospel was at the heart of this building in fact you couldn't even enter into the tabernacle without walking through a symbolic door that pictured the Lord Jesus Christ and then offering your sacrifice on the brazen altar symbolizing the atonement of Christ and as you move toward the Holy of Holies You're just moving past all kinds of pictures of the gospel that were put there in the tabernacle. And even the throne of God is called what? It's called a mercy seat. Sometimes it's called the throne of grace because the law of God that was under that seat was sprinkled with blood, okay, on the mercy seat. Again, it's all pointing forward to the gospel of Jesus Christ. The only way we can boldly approach the throne of God is through Jesus. Now the reason I've titled this sermon Civics Transformed by the Gospel is because we don't want to yank this message of the gospel out of its context like so many people have tended to do. If you remember, and I forgot to put it into your outlines, but the whole structure of the last section of this book, chapters 21 through 28, is structured like a chiasm with the first and the last sections dealing with political sin and the horrible consequences and how those were dealt with. And then the B sections are dealing with the hero warriors who were imperfect men and yet they were used by God to advance his kingdom. And then the central sections are two psalms, both of which talk about how kings, even though they're imperfect, even though they are sinners, are because of the gospel enabled to be used by God to rule. Now obviously the gospel of this section applies to all of life, but we miss the main intent if we do not directly apply it to politics and civics. And this is a message I think that desperately needs to be heard nowadays. All kings must kiss the sun, Psalm 2 says, and bow before his throne. All kings must see their entire lives transformed by the gospel. Now as I said in the first 1,500 years, for sure the first 1,000 years, this was very commonly known as nation after nation began to become officially Christian. You saw the gospel transforming everything they did. Abortion was outlawed, and pornography, and women's rights were elevated, and there were so many ways in which the gospel transformed that nation corporately. Grace invades civics, and that at least is part of the message that we're left with in this book. So let's look first of all at the sin that needs the gospel. Was this an individual sin or was it a corporate sin? Who was God angry with in verse 1 of this chapter? Okay, it says very clearly he was angry with the whole nation, right? And what kind of sin became the problem in this chapter? Well, it was the civil government engaging in an unlawful census. And what kind of judgment came in verses 10 through 17? Was it just David who was disciplined individually? No. God has sent his angel to send this plague throughout Israel, and people are dying from Dan to Beersheba. Now the angel is holding his threatening sword over the capital city of Jerusalem. And so the solution we're going to look at today was a solution that needed to be applied at the national level because it was a national sin that was being dealt with. And as the hymn writer very correctly said, that God's grace goes far as the curse is found. Is the curse of Jesus Christ, a curse of sin, I'm sorry, found in a national level? Absolutely. We are a cursed nation right now. We are in rebellion against God and our leaders need to plead God's forgiveness. We need to plead the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ on a national level. As God told David's son Solomon, When I shut up heaven and there is no rain, or command the locusts to devour the land, or send pestilence among my people, and that's what's happened in this chapter, right? A pestilence has come. If my people who are called by my name will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and heal their land. So can you see that? It is the gospel being applied to a nation's sins at a national level. And so David takes responsibility. He repents for the sin. He asks God to forgive. And that brings us up to point two and verse 18. And Gad came that day to David and said to him, go up, erect an altar to the Lord on the threshing floor of Araunah the Jebusite. God had already planned all of this out. The altar was God's thought, not man's thought. The gospel is not man seeking after God, it's God seeking after man. God is the provider and man is simply a responder and even our response would not be possible if God did not enable our response by his grace. But the response is still critical, very, very critical. Too many people interpret God's initiation as indicating that man is just passive. He's just a passive receiver. But the Gospel demands a response. 2 Corinthians 9.13 speaks of obedience to the Gospel. Obedience. Acts 17.30 says that God commands men to repent. It's not a polite offer to nations. They, you know, if you want to know, it's a demand. The king of the universe demands nations to repent and believe the gospel. And thus, even though the gospel is by grace alone, that grace produces an instant desire to obey and those who have tasted of it. And so in verse 19 of our chapter, it says, so David, according to the word of Gad went up as the Lord commanded. Interestingly, if you compare 1 Chronicles 21, which repeats the story and expands on it, it shows a totally different response from the four sons of Araunah. Though Araunah was not afraid of the angel, his four sons were. They hid from the angel. They were terrified. They do the exact opposite of David. They run from God, but David understands God's grace, and he believes the gospel of grace, and so he went straight toward this angel of the Lord, whom I believe was Theophany, the son of God, even though that angel is threateningly holding the sword of judgment over Jerusalem. Now you might think it takes guts to do that. I say no, it takes grace to do that. David only dared to boldly approach God's throne because of the gospel that he was about to prefigure. And if our national leaders would repent and sackcloth and ashes over the sins of our nation, they could have the same faith that God's grace is sufficient to forgive even such great and heinous sins as our nation has engaged in. The third thing I see in this passage is that even though the gospel can only be founded on the grace of the sacrifice of Christ, symbolized by those animal sacrifices, it demands a cost from us when we respond. It demands our all. The gospel doesn't just demand the token tip of the hat. You know, that angel, he could have wiped out the entire nation if he wanted to. But the nation he was going to wipe out he saves and he saves that nation to serve him. Now another way of saying this is that God has given us his all through his son and he demands from us in response our all that we give our all to him symbolized in the transactions of silver and gold. Take a look at verse second half of verse 25. So the Lord heeded the prayers for the land and the plague was withdrawn from Israel. As I mentioned, First Chronicles 21 shows how he did it. This miraculous fire came out of heaven, completely consumed the sacrifice, and that shows that he accepted it. It symbolizes the fact that Jesus was consumed by God's justice so that we would not be consumed. So that's the gospel in a nutshell. But the fact that Jesus paid it all does not imply, as so many antinomians believe, that the next phrase in the hymn is a contradiction that all to Him we owe. That's the way people say, no, because Jesus paid it all, we don't owe anything. We can just live our lives any way that we want. No, it's precisely because Jesus paid it all that He demands our all in response, that we daily pick up our cross and follow Him. Now, if you take a look at verses 22 through 23, it shows that Araunah was willing to give up all. In fact, that was the first impulse of his heart. Now Aaron said to David, let my lord the king take and offer up whatever seems good to him. Look, here are oxen for burnt sacrifice and threshing implements and the yokes of the oxen for wood. In other words, he's willing to give away all of the capital of his business, the very instruments that would bring him his wealth. He's willing to give it all away just like Jesus commanded the rich young ruler to do and follow after Christ. He says, all these, O king, Araunah has given to the king. And Araunah said to the king, may the Lord your God accept you. Now, of course, in verse 24, David wants to make the sacrifice. Those who are willing to give up all, Jesus generously gives back far more than we could ever give up. as a stewardship trust and a rounder will lose his land. There is a part of his sacrifice, but he's going to get back far more than his land is worth. But the key phrase. Nor will I offer burnt offerings to the Lord my God with that which costs me nothing." The response of the person who is tasted of God's grace is to gladly, sacrificially give back to the Lord everything that He is and everything that He has. We embrace a cost of discipleship. That's the key phrase there, picking up our cross and following Him, doing whatever He demands of us. It's not that we earn our salvation, we don't. It's that Jesus paid it all, all to Him we owe. Now the fourth thing that I see is that this redemption money bought back land from Jebusite use to holy use, from destruction to peace. Notice verse 18 again. Gad came that day to David and said to him, go up, erect an altar to the Lord on the threshing floor of Araunah the Jebusite." Now hadn't all of the Jebusites been, weren't they supposed to be all killed in the conquest of Canaan? Well, not if they converted, not if they converted, but the use of the term Jebusite I think is symbolic here. The future temple grounds were outside the city limits, outside of Israelite ownership, and this symbolizes the fact that God's throne is going to extend into Gentile territory. But the redemption money itself is interesting. Verse 24, then the king said to Araunah, no, but I will surely buy it for you for a price. nor will I offer burnt offerings to the Lord my God with that which costs me nothing. So David bought the threshing floor and the oxen for 50 shekels of silver." Now I first of all need to explain an apparent discrepancy between this passage and 1 Chronicles 21 that liberals bring up and that is that this passage says that he paid 50 shekels of silver, which is about 340 bucks. Okay, it's not very much money. It was 25 ounces of silver is what he paid. A little bit less. And 1 Chronicles 21 says he gave 600 shekels of gold, which is a huge sum of money for a plot of land that wasn't doing much of anything else. It was a pretty rocky piece of land. Now, far more than it was worth. Now, some resolve this by saying that David is buying just a small enough piece, maybe just about this big, to put an altar on in this passage. And in 1 Chronicles 21, he's buying the whole temple property. And that may be, but I don't think so. I think there's a lot more to it than that. The 50 shekels of silver is way too small of amount of money for any plot of land. And the 600 shekels is way too much for the plot of land that he bought, unless you understand the symbolism that is behind it. And then you realize, oh, okay, both of those sums of money are perfect. So let's get into that. There are three passages from the law that help to make sense out of what is going on here. And the first one is in Exodus chapter 30 and verses 11 through 16. It says that there needs to be a ransom of money of silver money paid every time there is a census. Now, I probably should have brought this passage up two weeks ago when we were dealing with the census because it shows how How much it's dangerous even to have a census that's legitimate. How much it really edges, it goes beyond the boundaries of civic propriety. So let me read that, just the first part of it for you. Exodus 30 beginning at verse 11. Then the Lord spoke to Moses saying, when you take the census of the children of Israel for their number, then every man shall give a ransom for himself to the Lord when you number them, that there may be no plague among them when you number them. So the offering of silver is explicitly called a ransom. It is specifically connected with avoiding a plague, which is what happened here, right, a plague came, and it's in connection with a census. Israel was deserving of a deadly plague, but this ransom pointed forward to Jesus who would pay the ransom for his people. So that's the first connection that at least a couple of commentators have pointed out that is a key to understanding this. The second is the figure of 50 shekels of silver. This is actually 100 times more ransom than an individual would have to pay. But it's the exact amount of money required by Leviticus 27 verse 16 when land was also being redeemed during the Jubilee cycle. And then Leviticus' description of the Jubilee principle itself is symbolic of the freedom and the liberty that Jesus would provide for the whole land. So altogether there are three references that form a background that indicate that the intention in the future was that Jesus would redeem individuals He would redeem an entire nation and He would redeem the land itself. As Romans points out, Jesus will redeem even the physical land and will make eventually a new heavens and a new earth in which dwells righteousness. And even the number 600 is what? 12 times the 50 shekels of silver, 12 times in terms of numbering and people say symbolic of representation of the 12 tribes of Israel. Now we don't need to dig too deeply into the symbolism so long as you understand the central point of the gospel message and the point is that the gospel should not be thought of as simply applying to individuals. It certainly does that. I mean, praise God, I love thinking about the Gospel and all that it means in terms of my own redemption. But Mark 13, verse 10 speaks of the Gospel to the nations. Galatians 3, 8 sums up the Gospel by quoting the passage, in you all the nations shall be blessed. What's the Great Commission about? It's discipling the nations. What's the promise in Matthew chapter 5 that the meek shall inherit the earth? Revelation 14.6 speaks of the everlasting gospel being preached to every nation, tribe, tongue, and people. And the cosmic scope of the gospel, according to Romans 8, is that even the very physical creation is going to be redeemed. All of the groaning and the thorns and the thistles and all of that kind of stuff. And there's going to be a new heavens and a new earth. Isaiah, Revelation, they all bring that. Now that's the good news. And the word gospel means good news, right? It is good news. It's good news for planet Earth, everything that goes on in planet Earth, including politics, which is the immediate context. And this leads to the next point that older commentators showed that David and Araunah were both kings. That may seem surprising from the text, but they were both kings and were prototypes of new covenant kings, both Jew and Gentile, who would become what the Westminster Confession of Faith calls nursing fathers of the church. I know we're introducing all kinds of new theology here, but nursing fathers of the church. David was a nursing father to Israel. In verse 17, He shows a shepherding concern for God's people saying this, 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. He's being protective. He's interceding. Civic leaders must always have a concern, not just for the physical welfare of their nation, but the spiritual welfare of their citizens. They should intercede for them. They should ask forgiveness for the citizens' sins. They should be zealous to serve God, to promote God's cause within that nation. Now it's true that a civil magistrate has a totally different jurisdiction than the church does, but Romans 13 says that we ought to call civil magistrates ministers of God. They are ministers of God every bit as much as I am a minister of God. Different jurisdictions, but they are meant to serve God. And so when talking to this Jebusite, Araunah, he does not pretend to be neutral on religion. No, his allegiance is quite clear. Take a look at verses 20 through 21. Now, Arona looked and saw the king and his servants coming toward him. So Arona went out and bowed before the king with his face to the ground. Then Arona said, why has my Lord the king come to his servant? And David said to buy the threshing floor from you to build an altar to Yahweh that the plague may be withdrawn from the people. and whether modern civil magistrates are dealing with Christians or with Jebusites. they should be just as clear that they are serving the Lord Jesus and that the nation's safety rests in trusting Jesus. In God we trust must not be just an empty slogan. Declaring our nation to have Jesus as our Lord in the year of our Lord is what our constitution words it, should not just be an empty phrase that's, okay, it's a meaningless phrase the way we date something. No, it must be a genuine acknowledgement of Christ's Lordship over civics. But one commentator pointed out that the Jebusite himself was a Gentile king who was spared and that is significant. Now let's look first of all at the fact that he was spared. 1 Chronicles 21 makes it clear that the angel was standing right in front of this Jebusite on the threshing floor with his sword drawn out of its sheath. And it terrified his son so much that they hid. But in 1 Chronicles 21, it says, didn't faze the father. This Jebusite father was not afraid. He just kept on threshing. Here's this threatening sword out there. He just keeps on doing his work. And so here is a man who is unafraid. He was just as secure in the face of God's justice as David was. We need to be so in tune with the gospel that we can face the flaming sword of God's justice and still be totally secure in Jesus. And it was this security, as well as his generous heart, that made some of the older commentators believe that this king was saved. Verses 22 through 23 again. Now Araunah said to David, let my lord the king take and offer whatever seems good to him. Look, here are oxen for burnt sacrifice and threshing implements and the yokes of the oxen for wood. All these, O king, Araunah has given to the king. And Araunah said to the king, may the lord your God accept you. Now whether he was saved or not, I don't think we need to prove. Commentators said the fact that he was spared is at least symbolically significant of the gospel going to Jew and Gentile. But there's more than that. A lot of commentators point out that the Jewish interpretation of this passage is that Araunah was a Jebuzite king, and the literal Hebrew calls him a king. Now, various modern translations translate it differently, probably because they don't understand how could a Jebuzite king even be living in Israel. But the literal Hebrew, verse 23, says this. All these, King Araunah gives to the king. And so Young's literal translation has, the whole hath Araunah given as a king to a king. The Geneva Bible has all these things that Araunah as a king give unto the king. Same with the King James Version, the Bishop's Bible, the Webster Bible. Now if this is true, then it emphasizes even more the gospel to kings. both Jewish and Gentile, which, by the way, was at the heart of Paul's commission. He was commissioned not only to preach the gospel to the nation of Israel and to Gentile nations, but to the kings of both of those nations. It's one of the reasons why I'm so passionate about Perry Gouthier's ministry and why I don't want it to quit. I want him to see him funded, is because he's one of the few people that takes this kind of a commission to kings seriously. The gospel must go to those who are rulers. In any case, this passage emphasizes the fact that the gospel turns kings into nursing fathers of the church. It's a concept that you ought to study from the Westminster Confession of Faith. We as a denomination believe in, what's the name of it, Ray? We were talking about it. Establishmentarianism. Christianity needs to be the established religion, and kings formally adopt it, and they adopt a confession of faith. That's the trajectory of the gospel. It'll transform every level of society in every nation. Now the location of this site was also significant for David. This was the place, or at least it was near to it, where Abraham offered tithes to Melchizedek, the king of Salem. By the way, Salem is just short for Jerusalem. And this was the place where Abraham later offered up his son Isaac and where God provided a substitute ram. And that symbolized the atonement of Jesus. Now on that future temple mount, Mount Moriah, Abraham made a declaration of faith that the coming Messiah would provide atonement. And I believe this is what Jesus was talking about when he said this, your father Abraham rejoiced to see my day and he saw it and was glad. That's John 8 verse 56. Let me read you Abraham's testimony in Genesis 22, 14. And Abraham called the name of the place, Yahweh will provide, as it is said to this day, in the Mount of Yahweh it shall be provided. And Jesus, who is Jehovah, provided this atonement in the mount of the Lord. Not just for individuals, but to redeem the entire planet earth. Now here's the point for all of this section. The future Messiah was the answer to the needs and the issues that we have been looking at in all of 1 and 2 Samuel. Now if Jesus was the answer in the days of David, Why would he stop being the answer in our own day? I mean, it makes no sense for Christians to say that Jesus and politics mixed back then, but they don't mix today. It makes no sense to say that God's throne was over all of life during the period when there were types and shadows But God's throne is not over all of life in the time that those types and shadows point to. No, it makes no sense. There needs to be some kind of a correlation between type and antitype, between the shadows and the reality. It makes no sense to say that the king should look to the gospel back then to solve his political problems. But nowadays they should not look to the gospel. And that's exactly what most people in the Christian church today believe. And it's so out of sync with what the history of Christianity has been. We have completely abandoned the power of the gospel of salvation to all of life. And so this whole section of chapters 21 through 28 gives a philosophy of politics being in submission to Jesus as Lord and Savior. In other words, submitting to law and to gospel. Now, if the law and the gospel continues to apply to politics then there are six logical applications that we can make and that's what we're going to end with. First, kings and other public officials should acknowledge the lordship of Jesus Christ over everything that they do. Now David acknowledged that God was Lord in two ways. First of all, David called him Lord. There was a confession of his being Lord in verses 10, 14, 21, and 24. And by the way, this is one of the reasons why the Covenanters, the Presbyterians in early America, were so offended with our Constitution. It was not so more explicit than it was in declaring Christ to be Lord of our nation. And I can understand where they're coming from. There must be a national confession that Jesus is Lord. Second, David acknowledged God as Lord by acknowledging God's laws as the laws of the nation. Now, at the beginning of the chapter, he hadn't. He didn't think it was such a big deal what the law of God said concerning census. He didn't think it was that big of a deal, but it was a big deal. And he discovered that. He repented of his sin. He re-acknowledged the laws of God. He also acknowledged God's Lordship by obeying His command in verses 18 through 19. And those two ways of acknowledging God's Lordship over America must once again be reestablished. Jesus Christ is not just Savior. He is Lord and Savior over and over again. That's the way it is. It's Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. In the Messianic Psalms, Psalm 72, It says, all kings shall fall down before him. All nations shall serve him. So we must once again acknowledge that we are a nation under God, and as the Declaration of Independence says, under the laws of God. Okay, we must acknowledge that. And it is the gospel of this section and the gospel alone that will enable America to be able to do so once again. Now, so that's the first application, that rulers must, by the gospel, acknowledge Christ's lordship and His law. The second obvious application of this passage is that kings and other public officials should recognize the danger of throwing off God's laws. You know, just as Joab and David and the other civic officers realized, wow, this was not a good thing. This was dangerous, throwing off God's law concerning the census. It was dangerous back then, and Psalm 2 says it will continue to be dangerous in the New Covenant to ignore God's Son. That Psalm speaks of the foolishness of Gentile kings trying to throw off the bonds of God's laws, and it goes on to say that God will have His Son smite all rebellious nations in the New Covenant with a rod of iron if they persist in their rebellion. Well, we've been seeing nonstop examples of God smiting the Gentile nations, you know, over the past many centuries when they refused to submit to His laws. He brings death. from war and disease and tyranny. He brings other forms of discipline into nations, and America has not escaped. We've been experiencing it for quite some time. Long before I was born, we've been experiencing this. And if America persists in rebellion, America will face even more severe judgments from Christ's rod of iron. It's just the way God works. So it's still dangerous to rebel against Jesus. By the way, in case you're wondering, Acts 2, I mean, well, yeah, it is in Acts 2, but Psalm 2 is quoted in the book of Acts a number of times indicating that Christ is presently ruling, is presently bringing those judgments. Now the third obvious application is that nations must not look to the state for salvation. I think that's a big application, isn't it? That was David's problem with taking the census in the first place. He was wanting to have security. He wanted to have a massive army for political security. And today, civic officers should not go to science, to the military, to medicine, or to any part of creation for salvation. Those things can serve Christ, right? But they cannot become a substitute savior. That's the key point. David could very easily have gone to the doctors and said, hey, doctors, we got a plague going. You've got to do your utmost to figure out where this plague started and you've got to try to resolve this. No, that wasn't the first thing impulse of his heart. Can we use doctors? Obviously, but only as we trust God first. And I don't see America doing that today. In the past, they used to. As soon as there was a drought or there was a plague, that was the first impulse was to have national confession of sin and ask God, what is going on? Why are you disciplining us? Please forgive and heal our land. Psalm 33 calls upon all future kings to look to Jesus to be savior, not man. It says no king is saved by the multitude of an army. A horse is a vain hope for safety, neither shall it deliver any by its great strength. Behold, the eye of the Lord is on those who fear him, on those who hope in his mercy to deliver their soul from death and to keep them alive in famine. Fourth application, this means that civic officers should recognize a cause and effect relationship between the sins of the nation and national calamities. And I know we've dealt with this before, but it's so important that we not be deistic when it comes to trying to deal with and look at the problems that have come up in America. Because there is a connection, our national leaders should continue America's tradition of publicly repenting and calling the nation to repent anytime the nation has publicly violated God's laws. And I was very encouraged when the president of Uganda, Yoweri Museveni, publicly prayed, just like David did in these verses, and I want to quote a portion of President Museveni's historic prayer. He said, I stand here today to close the evil past and especially in the last 50 years of our national leadership history and at the threshold of a new dispensation in the life of this nation. I stand here on my own behalf and on behalf of my predecessors to repent. We ask for your forgiveness. We confess these sins which have greatly hampered our national cohesion and delayed our political, social, and economic transformation. He saw a connection, you know, between all of these miseries they were experiencing and the sins. He goes on, he says, we confess our sins of idolatry and witchcraft which are rampant in our land. We confess sins of shedding innocent blood, sins of political hypocrisy, dishonesty, intrigue, and betrayal. Forgive us of sins of pride, tribalism, and sectarianism, sins of laziness, indifference, and irresponsibility, sins of corruption and bribery that have eroded our national resources, sins of sexual immorality, drunkenness, and debauchery, sins of unforgiveness, bitterness, hatred, and revenge, sins of injustice, oppression, and exploitation, sins of rebellion, insubordination, strife, and conflict, We want to dedicate this nation to you so that you will be our God and guide. We want Uganda to be known as a nation that fears God and as a nation whose foundations are firmly rooted in righteousness and justice to fulfill what the Bible says in Psalm 33 12. Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord, a people you have chosen as your own. And I say amen, amen. May the Lord answer that prayer on behalf of Uganda and may He cause other nations to begin to embrace the gospel in the same way. This is what we're talking about, okay? See, David insists in Psalm 2 that kings in the New Covenant should continue to publicly repent of sin and rebellion and kiss the sun lest he be angry and they perish in the way. That's exactly what it's talking about. They must seek the cleansing of God's grace for healing and the land. Fifth, civic officers should publicly worship the true God as David did in verse 25 and especially as it's expanded in 1 Chronicles chapter 21. And Solomon in Psalm 22 prophesied that all kings will eventually worship Jesus, will eventually bow down before him. Worship is one necessary outcome of the gospel. And when worship is absent from our hearts, it's an evidence that grace is absent from our hearts. And then sixth, civic officers should have faith in the sufficiency of Jesus for our national problems. Okay, from a human perspective, it may have looked pretty silly for David to be responding to a medical plague, give me a break, a medical plague, the way he does in verse 25. And certainly it would seem silly if we did that today in America. Our first impulse is to independently fix things, not to ask Jesus to help us to fix things. Verse 25 says, and David built there an altar to the Lord and offered burnt offerings and peace offerings. Why didn't he send out the CDC first, right? But look at the result. So the Lord heeded the prayers for the land and the plague was withdrawn from Israel. Boom, it was over just like that. The plague was withdrawn, why? Because the nation was now in a right relationship with God. Now it takes faith to believe that that can happen, right? And I believe that pleading the sacrifice of Jesus will solve our modern problems just as surely as David through the blood sacrifices was pleading the blood of Jesus solved his national issues as well. The gospel restores the fellowship and the blessing. and it empowers people to joyfully obey God's laws. Now there's a whole lot more that could be said about how do you apply the gospel to civics. Oh wow, there's a lot more that could be said, but at least this passage lays the foundation and the groundwork for it. May we never tire of pointing all of life to the gospel of Jesus Christ and through the gospel seeking to have all things submit beneath the feet of King Jesus our Lord and Savior. Amen. Father we thank you for your word and we thank you for the trajectory of the gospel and we thank you for the victory of the gospel that you are far greater than the devil who is in the world that you conquered the devil that you raised your son, Jesus, above every principality and power, that you sat him at your right hand, that he is now ruling with that rod of iron. And we thank you that Revelation 2 says that those who are overcomers, who have the faith to believe these kinds of things, can have the privilege from time to time to wield that same rod of iron over the nations. Father, give us that faith and cause us, even though we're a small congregation, to have an influence way out of proportion to our numbers. And we pray that you would do the same with other congregations throughout this nation and throughout other nations, that you would raise up a people of faith who believe that Jesus Christ has indeed triumphed over every principality and power and that we need to stand in his victory and that we need to have the faith of the early church and advance your kingdom. Lay down our lives for the cause, but be worthy foot soldiers in your army. Father, it is our privilege to give our lives to you and with Arona. and with David to sacrificially offer up our lives as a costly sacrifice to you. We know we can only do that by grace as well, but it is our joy to do so. And so we pray, Father, that you would cause this nation to bow its knees before King Jesus. We confess once again, as was confessed earlier in this service, the horrible, horrible sins that have afflicted this nation. And Father, we know that many of the calamities that we have experienced, whether in war, whether in disease, through earthquake, through tornadoes, or through other means, our afflictions that are very light compared to what we deserve. But we confess the sins of our nation. We pray that you would raise up civic officers who would do the same, who would become nursing fathers for the church, having an interest in the spiritual welfare, not just the physical welfare of the citizens of this nation. Father, please, Have mercy upon this nation. Have mercy upon the other nations of this world. And we pray that for the sake of your dear son, you would take back nations that Satan has stolen and that you would cause great honor to triumph for the gospel. And we pray this in Jesus' name. Amen.