Disciplined 2 Samuel 24:1-25 August 25-26 2018 Jim Armstrong (All quotations are from the NASB.) Today we come to the end of our quick study of the book of Second Samuel. We have looked at David the King; at his triumphs and his failures. We have seen him at his best and at his worst. And now we are coming to the end. We have seen David s last words in chapter 23 and the listing of the mighty men who fought for him in all his battles. It seems that should be the end of the book. But it isn t. There is one more chapter in 2 Samuel. It is a strange chapter and hard to understand. Most Bible commentators treat it as an appendix since it occurs out of place and appears to be tacked on to end of the book. It is like the writer of 2 Samuel was ready to close the story he had already recorded David s last words when he all of a sudden remembered that there was one more thing to record about David s life. That is what we are going to study today. To really see what this chapter has to say, you have to start with verse one. 1 Now again the anger of the Lord burned against Israel, and it incited David against them to say, Go, number Israel and Judah. This verse is hard to understand. God is angry with Israel. We are not told why He is angry though we are told that His anger burned against Israel. Then we come across the confusing statement that that anger incited David to sin. God was angry and so He caused David to sin so He could vent His anger. All of this makes no sense. But let s make it worse. This same story is also recorded in 1 Chronicles chapter 21. Here is verse one of that chapter: 1 Then Satan stood up against Israel and moved David to number Israel. In 2 Samuel it says God incited David to number the people. In 1 Chronicles it says Satan did it. Which one is correct? This is all very confusing. I have read many commentaries and many books about this chapter and I can tell you that everyone I have read has had a problem with this chapter. A few have tried to make sense out of it but others just say they don t understand it. I am with the second group. I don t understand. But still there are lessons to be learned Lesson number one: When you are dealing with God you won t understand everything and sometimes the whole situation will be confusing. But we have been called to walk by faith and not by our understanding. We are dealing with the eternal, infinite, all powerful God of the universe. Is it any wonder that we don t always understand? Is it so hard to accept the fact that at times we will become confused and have to wait for the answer as to why something is happening the way it is happening? Brothers and sisters, don t be so quick to expect God to conform to your understanding. He wouldn t be much of a God if He could always be explained by a human. Lesson number two: There are three people involved in our lives as Christians. First there is God. He sees everything and is in charge of what happens and what doesn t happen to us. He is always working for our good. Next there is Satan. He hates us just because God loves us. He is always trying to hide himself so that people won t think he is real. But in reality he is always working and he is always working to hurt us. If you don t realize that Satan is real an very active in our world, you will wind up blaming God for all of the bad stuff that happens. Finally, in between God and Satan, there is us. Humanity is the prize being fought over by heaven and hell. God has refrained from dealing with His enemy directly. He has limited Himself to working through men and women. And Satan can t attack God directly so all he can do to try and destroy the pinnacle of God s creation, humanity. And we all stand in the middle of this great war.
But let us press on: 2 So the king said to Joab and the army commanders with him, Go throughout the tribes of Israel from Dan to Beersheba and enroll the fighting men, so that I may know how many there are. 3 But Joab replied to the king, May the Lord your God multiply the troops a hundred times over, and may the eyes of my lord the king see it. But why does my lord the king want to do such a thing? 4 The king s word, however, overruled Joab and the army commanders; so they left the presence of the king to enroll the fighting men of Israel. No matter who started it, David took the thought of numbering the people and ran with it. His main general, Joab, tried to dissuade him. But David wouldn t listen. He was determined to do something that everyone else knew to be wrong. This brings us to our next lesson. Lesson number three: We are all accountable for our own actions. No matter what had happened beforehand, David chose to forge ahead into sin and what he did was his choice and his fault. And, just like the rest of us, he had to bear the consequences of his sin. A few years ago there was a comedian named Flip Wilson. His most famous line was The devil made me do it. He would say that after he got caught doing something he shouldn t have been doing. The idea was that whenever he did wrong he could get out of the consequences by blaming it on the devil. That idea might work for a comedian. But it doesn t work in real life. God doesn t allow us to lay any blame on anyone else. He holds each and every one of us responsible for all that we do. Yes, God is involved in our lives. And yes Satan is too. But we do the choosing and the carrying out of our choices. We are accountable for our actions. I know that from the first verse of this chapter it may seem as if God and Satan both were manipulating David and causing him to sin. And honestly I don t have a really good explanation for what the scripture says about all that happened. (Knowing God the way I do I am sure there is an explanation. We just don t know all of the facts yet.) But none of that matters. The bottom line is that we all must stand and answer for what we do and we should never forget that. So Joab and his men went out all over Israel and counted the people and especially the men who could fight in a battle. After going through all of the cities the Bible says: 8 So when they had gone about through the whole land, they came to Jerusalem at the end of nine months and twenty days. Lesson number four: Sin is seldom the quickie it seems it will be when we are being tempted. Usually we think we can do something wrong and it will be over and done with in a short period of time. But often it doesn t work out that way. Here David s decision was to cost Joab and the commanders of the army 10 months of their time; ten months wasted doing something they should never have been doing. David probably thought that sleeping with Bathsheba would just be a one night stand. But look at all of the heartache and trouble that one night caused. The effects dragged out for years. It is a fact that being obedient is a much more restful life than being disobedient. But, good or bad, David was God s man. And God s men and women all are affected by the ministry of the Holy Spirit. They may sin, but eventually that sin will come back to haunt them. Just like it did David. 10 Now David s heart troubled him after he had numbered the people. Lesson number five: Conviction of sin is a gift from God. This conviction does not come primarily to make us feel guilty, though it does have that effect, but rather it comes because God wants us to be His sons in reality as well as in position. He wants children who are different than the world. He wants His people to be a people of
righteousness and therefore He makes them aware of their sin. God can never be satisfied to fellowship with children who are living in disobedience and yet don t realize what they are doing. Thus, by His Holy Spirit He sends conviction to cause us to leave our sin and come back to Him. But when conviction comes, it must be followed by an admission on our part that we have sinned. The Bible usually calls that admission confession. That is what David did after his heart was troubled and he realized what he had done. So David said to the Lord, I have sinned greatly in what I have done. But now, O Lord, please take away the iniquity of Your servant, for I have acted very foolishly. Lesson number six: For God s children, whenever conviction comes, the response should be confession; no excuses, but simple confession. (The word confess in Greek means to agree with. When we confess our sin we agree with what God says. Yes, it was sin. Yes, we did it. End of discussion.) The point of confession is not to feel shame or guilt, but to seek restoration of fellowship with the Father. Look how David asked that all iniquity would be removed from God s servant. We confess so that we can get on with being who God has called us to be. There is a tendency for some people to focus on feeling guilty. They think the guiltier they feel the more they are approved by God. But just the opposite is true. God says in First John 1:9: If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness. God s word is that we confess, He forgives and that ends it. Any guilt after God forgives is a pure waste of time. But even though we confess our sin and God forgives it, we all need to be aware that while the guilt is gone, that is not the end of the story. 11 When David arose in the morning, the word of the Lord came to the prophet Gad, David s seer, saying, 12 Go and speak to David, Thus the Lord says, I am offering you three things; choose for yourself one of them, which I will do to you. 13 So Gad came to David and told him, and said to him, Shall seven years of famine come to you in your land? Or will you flee three months before your foes while they pursue you? Or shall there be three days pestilence in your land? Now consider and see what answer I shall return to Him who sent me. 14 Then David said to Gad, I am in great distress. Let us now fall into the hand of the Lord for His mercies are great, but do not let me fall into the hand of man. 15 So the Lord sent a pestilence upon Israel from the morning until the appointed time, and seventy thousand men of the people from Dan to Beersheba died. Lesson number seven: There are always unplanned consequences from our sin. Here, with David, we have a situation that is pretty abnormal. David was given a choice of consequences. That is very unusual. Most of the time, with us, there is no choice of consequence. The fruit of our sin just comes as it comes. But David was given a choice and it seems as if he turned the choice back over to God. He declared that it was always better to be in God s hands than in man s. And God sent a pestilence that killed 70,000 people from the north to the south of Israel. This may seem to us to be unfair. David committed the sin and yet the people were doing the dying. And that is unfair. But we must learn that the results of sin are always unfair and they always involve other people. Our sin always affects others and many times those affected are the innocent ones. But though the consequences of our sin may seem to be terrible, we can take comfort in knowing that they are not endless.
16 When the angel stretched out his hand toward Jerusalem to destroy it, the Lord relented from the calamity and said to the angel who destroyed the people, It is enough! Now relax your hand! And the angel of the Lord was by the threshing floor of Araunah the Jebusite. 17 Then David spoke to the Lord when he saw the angel who was striking down the people, and said, Behold, it is I who have sinned, and it is I who have done wrong; but these sheep, what have they done? Please let Your hand be against me and against my father s house. Lesson number eight: When God s children sin, there may be serious consequences and they may go on for a long time, but we can count on the fact that there will always be a conclusion. There will always be an end. Just like a parent with their children. You get angry but you get over it. Here we have a two sided view of what was going on behind the scenes. First we see God, Who said that what had happened was enough and He told the angel to stop the killing. But while that was going on it seems David, who was evidently able to see the angel of the pestilence, was also praying, asking God to stop. And David was willing to take the whole consequence of his sin on himself. (That was a good prayer but it was a little too late for the 70,000 who had already died.) Men and women, we may endure discipline because of our sin. But never lose hope. There will be an end. God s anger will not last forever. You can count on that! Finally, we come to the most important lesson of this final session on 2 Samuel. In this chapter it is hard to see this lesson in its fulness but it is there just the same. 18 So Gad came to David that day and said to him, Go up, erect an altar to the Lord on the threshing floor of Araunah the Jebusite. 19 David went up according to the word of Gad, just as the Lord had commanded. 20 Araunah looked down and saw the king and his servants crossing over toward him; and Araunah went out and bowed his face to the ground before the king. 21 Then Araunah said, Why has my lord the king come to his servant? And David said, To buy the threshing floor from you, in order to build an altar to the Lord, that the plague may be held back from the people. 22 Araunah said to David, Let my lord the king take and offer up what is good in his sight. Look, the oxen for the burnt offering, the threshing sledges and the yokes of the oxen for the wood. 23 Everything, O king, Araunah gives to the king. And Araunah said to the king, May the Lord your God accept you. 24 However, the king said to Araunah, No, but I will surely buy it from you for a price, for I will not offer burnt offerings to the Lord my God which cost me nothing. So David bought the threshing floor and the oxen for fifty shekels of silver. 25 David built there an altar to the Lord and offered burnt offerings and peace offerings. Thus the Lord was moved by prayer for the land, and the plague was held back from Israel. Lesson number nine: And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose. (ROMANS 8:28) At the end of everything, God commanded David to build an altar in a certain place: the threshing floor where he saw the angel of the pestilence; the threshing floor that belonged to Araunah the Jebusite. God was specific about the place and David obeyed. But first he bought the threshing floor from Araunah for 50 shekels of silver or about $300. David got a bargain but it was a better bargain than he probably knew at the time. The Jebusites were the people that David had fought to take the city of Jerusalem. But even though the city was now the capital of Israel, there were still Jebusites living there and one of them was named Araunah. Now Araunah is not really a name, it is a title. It means king. Araunah was probably the king of the Jebusites living in Jerusalem. And he owned the threshing floor in question and it was a special place. To see how special, we need to look at some verses in Genesis and 2 Chronicles. Then God said, Take your son, your only son, whom you love Isaac and go to the region of
Moriah. Sacrifice him there as a burnt offering on a mountain I will show you. (GENESIS 22:2) In the story about God calling Abraham to sacrifice his son Isaac, an act that caused Abraham to be called the friend of God, God was very specific about where the sacrifice was to take place: in the region of Moriah. Moriah is another name for the mount Zion. Then Solomon began to build the temple of the Lord in Jerusalem on Mount Moriah, where the Lord had appeared to his father David. It was on the threshing floor of Araunah the Jebusite, the place provided by David. (2 CHRONICLES 3:1) David had wanted to build a temple for the Lord but the Lord had told him he couldn t but that his son would. And even though he didn t get to build the temple, he did provide the place where it was to be built: the threshing floor of Araunah which was the place where God had sent Abraham to offer Isaac. (In fact the rabbis taught that the Holy of Holies, the place where God dwelt in the temple, was built right over that threshing floor.) This special place, where Abraham had proved that he was fully obedient to God in everything, was now going to become the site of God s house on the Earth. The lesson we need to see out of all this is that God will bring good out of everything even our sin. This whole story has been a mess. But at the end, the place for God s house was revealed. Never believe that any situation is so sorry that God can t bring good out of it. Don t sell God short. Our puny sin can never overcome His majesty and His will. God knows what He is doing and nothing we do can stop Him. He will get His Kingdom and His glory no matter what Satan has planed and no matter what we do to get in the way. The consummation of the matter is that David was disciplined so he could learn his lesson and God moved forward in His plan for Israel in spite of or one might say because of David s sin. 33 Oh, the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are His judgments and unfathomable His ways! 34 For who has known the mind of the Lord, or who became His counselor? 35 Or who has first given to Him that it might be paid back to him again? 36 For from Him and through Him and to Him are all things. To Him be the glory forever. Amen. (Romans 11:33-36)