WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:07.080 Okay, well we're going to look back at Psalm 24. 00:00:07.080 --> 00:00:11.640 So if you have your Bibles, it will be helpful because we'll hopefully stay close to the 00:00:11.640 --> 00:00:17.440 text. 00:00:17.440 --> 00:00:23.000 I know this has been said more than once in this series, but I hope it was clear to you 00:00:23.000 --> 00:00:28.080 when we were reading this passage that there are, that this passage raises many questions 00:00:28.079 --> 00:00:32.239 that are obviously difficult. 00:00:32.239 --> 00:00:38.839 Namely, take for example in verse one, God is angry and we don't know why he's angry, 00:00:38.839 --> 00:00:41.280 or at least the text doesn't say. 00:00:41.280 --> 00:00:50.119 And then God, the word in our ESV uses it in sites, God incites David to take a census 00:00:50.119 --> 00:00:55.719 and then David gets in trouble for taking the census. 00:00:55.719 --> 00:00:58.560 And so this passage raises a lot of questions. 00:00:58.560 --> 00:01:03.280 And what I want to do tonight is if you notice the text is in three different sections, or 00:01:03.280 --> 00:01:08.280 at least in my Bible it is, it's flipped in three sections, I want to ask one question 00:01:08.280 --> 00:01:12.000 of each section in this passage. 00:01:12.000 --> 00:01:18.599 In the first section I want to ask why the anger, and then I want to ask why the mercy, 00:01:18.599 --> 00:01:23.140 and then finally why the altar in the final section. 00:01:23.140 --> 00:01:28.159 And then as we're going through those three questions as a way of thinking through the 00:01:28.159 --> 00:01:32.879 text and what it means for David and what it means for us, I hope a fourth question 00:01:32.879 --> 00:01:40.319 lingers in the back of your mind, which is of all the stories to tell, why does the author 00:01:40.319 --> 00:01:47.319 of first and second Samuel end the life of the greatest king who ever lived with this 00:01:47.319 --> 00:01:51.079 weird story about a census gone wrong? 00:01:51.079 --> 00:01:55.719 You know, you could say, well, he knew that first king was going to pick up the rest of 00:01:55.719 --> 00:02:01.079 the story, but the writer of first and second Samuel chose to end the story of David's 00:02:01.079 --> 00:02:04.159 life from his perspective with this story. 00:02:04.159 --> 00:02:06.159 And I want to ask why is that? 00:02:06.159 --> 00:02:07.159 Is there a reason? 00:02:07.159 --> 00:02:11.840 And I hope that by the end of this sermon I can convince you why it's fitting that this 00:02:11.840 --> 00:02:17.120 be the final testimony of first and second Samuel about King David. 00:02:17.120 --> 00:02:22.200 Okay, so the first question I want to ask tonight, why the anger? 00:02:22.200 --> 00:02:28.200 So in verse one, you see it says, again, the anger of the Lord was kindled against Israel, 00:02:28.200 --> 00:02:33.920 and he incited David against them, saying, go and number the people. 00:02:33.920 --> 00:02:37.719 And so the obvious question is, why is God angry? 00:02:37.719 --> 00:02:41.680 And the answer to that question, which I'm sure you're all dying to know is, we have 00:02:41.680 --> 00:02:43.439 no idea. 00:02:43.439 --> 00:02:48.479 And I've looked through quite a few commentaries, and every now and then a guy will look back 00:02:48.479 --> 00:02:52.039 in first and second Samuel, and he'll try to pick a moment in history where Israel did 00:02:52.039 --> 00:02:56.199 something wrong, and he'll say, well, that's why he was angry, but no one really knows, 00:02:56.199 --> 00:03:00.639 that we have no idea why God was angry here. 00:03:00.639 --> 00:03:06.079 And what that means is, when we come to this passage, we have to be willing to accept the 00:03:06.079 --> 00:03:12.919 fact of God's anger, even though we don't know what brought it about in the first place. 00:03:12.919 --> 00:03:20.639 And accepting that means also accepting the fact that our God is under no obligation to 00:03:20.639 --> 00:03:25.639 explain all of his ways to us. 00:03:25.639 --> 00:03:33.039 What we can say for sure is that in this context, what must be true of divine anger is, I think 00:03:33.039 --> 00:03:37.560 the temptation is when you see anger, and you don't see an explanation, you think, well, 00:03:37.560 --> 00:03:43.080 maybe it's like human anger, where people sometimes get angry for no reason, and it's 00:03:43.080 --> 00:03:44.080 wrong. 00:03:44.080 --> 00:03:47.199 But that can't be what God is doing here, because of the testimony of the rest of scripture, 00:03:47.199 --> 00:03:52.280 where God's anger in scripture is always justified. 00:03:52.280 --> 00:03:55.840 One theologian, Donald MacLeod, he defines God's anger like this. 00:03:55.840 --> 00:04:04.759 He says, God's anger, divine anger, is the calm, deliberate, and proportionate way in 00:04:04.759 --> 00:04:10.120 which eternal and underlying holiness responds to sin. 00:04:10.120 --> 00:04:13.719 It's calm, it's deliberate, it's proportionate. 00:04:13.719 --> 00:04:19.480 But God's holiness responds to sin, and that's what his anger is. 00:04:19.480 --> 00:04:27.319 And while we're at it, we also don't know what it means when it says that God incited 00:04:27.319 --> 00:04:31.920 David to take a census, because we know that, and we'll talk about why, we know that the 00:04:31.920 --> 00:04:35.439 census was wrong, because David gets punished for it. 00:04:35.439 --> 00:04:40.160 And so we don't know why God would incite David to do something that was intrinsically 00:04:40.160 --> 00:04:44.000 sinful, or what that statement even means. 00:04:44.000 --> 00:04:51.439 And again, I look through all the commentaries, and no one has a great answer for this. 00:04:51.439 --> 00:04:57.840 If you look, one thing that may add to the confusion or clarify things, this same story 00:04:57.840 --> 00:05:01.240 is told in 1 Chronicles, chapter 21. 00:05:01.240 --> 00:05:06.439 But what's interesting is, when you go to 1 Chronicles, chapter 21, it also says that 00:05:06.439 --> 00:05:09.960 someone incited David to take a census. 00:05:09.960 --> 00:05:15.319 But over there it says it was Satan who incited David to take a census. 00:05:15.319 --> 00:05:22.639 And so you could say, well, this could be like the story of Job, where Satan tempts Job, 00:05:22.639 --> 00:05:27.639 but God is permitting it to happen so that in some sense they're both involved. 00:05:27.639 --> 00:05:29.879 And maybe you could just leave it at that. 00:05:29.879 --> 00:05:37.519 I think I actually want to stop even before there and say really and truly, I don't think 00:05:37.519 --> 00:05:41.680 we know what verse one means. 00:05:41.680 --> 00:05:48.360 And I can hear your voice in my head saying, you're telling me I came to church tonight, 00:05:48.360 --> 00:05:52.480 just for you to tell me I don't know what this passage is about. 00:05:52.480 --> 00:05:55.600 And that's what I'm saying about verse one. 00:05:55.600 --> 00:06:00.439 But I'm also saying that may actually be part of the point of verse one, that there is a 00:06:00.439 --> 00:06:07.080 message here for us, which is that God does things sometimes that we cannot explain, and 00:06:07.080 --> 00:06:11.439 that His ways are not our ways, and His thoughts are not our thoughts. 00:06:11.439 --> 00:06:16.520 But the one thing we can be sure of is that in those places where we don't know what God 00:06:16.520 --> 00:06:22.439 is doing, it cannot be the case that God is less loving and less gracious than we originally 00:06:22.439 --> 00:06:23.439 thought. 00:06:23.439 --> 00:06:29.120 It's always the case that whatever the underlying truth is, He is greater than we could imagine, 00:06:29.120 --> 00:06:31.480 not less great. 00:06:31.480 --> 00:06:32.839 Okay. 00:06:32.839 --> 00:06:36.360 So that's the most of what we for sure don't know. 00:06:36.360 --> 00:06:39.839 But all that really does is just set the context for the passage. 00:06:39.839 --> 00:06:45.680 The real question of the passage is why is God angry about the census? 00:06:45.680 --> 00:06:49.720 And again, the passage doesn't tell us why God is angry about the census. 00:06:49.720 --> 00:06:54.000 But I think the reason here that it doesn't tell us why is because it actually assumes 00:06:54.000 --> 00:06:57.480 that we know why the census is wrong. 00:06:57.480 --> 00:07:01.840 And let me explain that for a moment. 00:07:01.840 --> 00:07:06.240 There is nothing intrinsically wrong about a census, and that must be the case because 00:07:06.240 --> 00:07:12.240 earlier in Exodus and in Deuteronomy, God actually tells Moses to take a census, so 00:07:12.240 --> 00:07:15.000 that can't be intrinsically wrong. 00:07:15.000 --> 00:07:20.040 And so what's going on here is the census is a sign for something deeper that's going 00:07:20.040 --> 00:07:25.639 on, something inside David's heart that God looks at and sees is wrong, and that if it's 00:07:25.639 --> 00:07:30.759 not dealt with now, it could get worse and worse. 00:07:30.759 --> 00:07:32.959 And I want to take you back in the book of Samuel. 00:07:32.959 --> 00:07:36.839 So think before David, you had Saul. 00:07:36.839 --> 00:07:39.519 And before Saul, you had the prophet Samuel. 00:07:39.519 --> 00:07:45.159 And the people came to the prophet Samuel one day, and they begged Samuel for a king. 00:07:45.159 --> 00:07:51.479 And Samuel goes to God, and God tells Samuel, you can give them a king. 00:07:51.479 --> 00:07:56.399 But when Samuel comes back to the people, and he tells them that he'll give them a king, 00:07:56.399 --> 00:08:02.120 he also gives them this ominous warning, this danger about what the future king will be 00:08:02.120 --> 00:08:03.759 like. 00:08:03.759 --> 00:08:06.639 And this is what Samuel says. 00:08:06.639 --> 00:08:14.479 Samuel says to the people who want a king, he says, be warned, these will be the ways 00:08:14.479 --> 00:08:17.639 of the king who will reign over you. 00:08:17.639 --> 00:08:18.639 Listen to this. 00:08:18.639 --> 00:08:23.719 He says, Samuel says, the king that will reign over you will take your sons and appoint them 00:08:23.719 --> 00:08:27.759 to his chariots and to be his horsemen and to run before his chariots. 00:08:27.759 --> 00:08:32.360 And I'm not going to read the whole passage, but Samuel goes on and says that when a king 00:08:32.360 --> 00:08:40.240 rules over you, he will take your daughters and the work in his house. 00:08:40.240 --> 00:08:43.840 And he says, he'll take your fields, and he'll take the best of your produce. 00:08:43.840 --> 00:08:50.879 And ultimately, Samuel looks at the people and verbatim, he says, you will be his slaves, 00:08:50.879 --> 00:08:56.639 and you will cry out not for a king, but because of your king. 00:08:56.639 --> 00:09:02.399 And Samuel is saying the tendency of all kings, of all human kings is that once they 00:09:02.399 --> 00:09:05.000 have power, they become selfish. 00:09:05.000 --> 00:09:09.720 And their tendency, their natural inclination is to take and to take and to take from the 00:09:09.720 --> 00:09:13.720 very people that they're meant to shepherd and to protect. 00:09:13.720 --> 00:09:18.879 And Samuel says, if we give you a king, if God gives you a king, your king will be no 00:09:18.879 --> 00:09:24.240 different than all the other kings who you so desperately want to mimic. 00:09:24.240 --> 00:09:30.000 So you have this divine warning at the beginning of Samuel about the danger of power-hungryness. 00:09:30.000 --> 00:09:37.240 And then you come to 2 Samuel chapter 24 and look down at verse 9, and you see the reason 00:09:37.240 --> 00:09:41.360 why David ordered a census, or at least I think you infer this. 00:09:41.360 --> 00:09:47.000 In verse 9, it says that after they had gone in the country and taken the census, Joab 00:09:47.000 --> 00:09:50.840 gave the sum of the numbering of the people to the king. 00:09:50.840 --> 00:09:56.879 In Israel, they were 800,000 valiant men who drew the sword, and the men of Judah were 00:09:56.879 --> 00:09:59.120 500,000. 00:09:59.120 --> 00:10:04.320 And you hear that voice of Samuel saying, he will take your sons and appoint them to 00:10:04.320 --> 00:10:06.480 his chariots. 00:10:06.480 --> 00:10:11.600 And I think the reason that this passage is reacting so strongly against the census is 00:10:11.600 --> 00:10:14.600 that there are no foreign enemies at the door. 00:10:14.600 --> 00:10:17.639 But David is gathering all the people. 00:10:17.639 --> 00:10:23.000 He's going from village to village to village to find out where are the strong men. 00:10:23.000 --> 00:10:29.919 And most theologians interpret this as him trying to consolidate his power, to become 00:10:29.919 --> 00:10:30.919 strong. 00:10:30.919 --> 00:10:35.639 And whether that's fear or whether that's pride, we don't know, but David is taking 00:10:35.639 --> 00:10:39.840 power into his own hands and consolidating power. 00:10:39.840 --> 00:10:44.279 And he's in doing so. 00:10:44.279 --> 00:10:47.600 He's no longer treating his people like the sheep that he shepherds. 00:10:47.600 --> 00:10:53.279 He's treating them like numbers on a balance sheet that tell him how strong he really is. 00:10:53.279 --> 00:10:59.279 And the way that the census is done shows you that this isn't like our censuses today. 00:10:59.279 --> 00:11:03.399 You know, like, I have a neighbor here in Scotland who is a census. 00:11:03.399 --> 00:11:05.560 She works for the Scottish census. 00:11:05.560 --> 00:11:07.759 And she is the sweetest lady. 00:11:07.759 --> 00:11:12.080 And if she came to my door asking me about my children for the census, I wouldn't be 00:11:12.080 --> 00:11:13.080 afraid at all. 00:11:13.080 --> 00:11:15.040 And I would tell her whatever she wanted to know. 00:11:15.039 --> 00:11:21.159 But David, when he takes his census, what is happening is the leaders of his army are 00:11:21.159 --> 00:11:25.199 going from village to village to village, looking for the sons of the people. 00:11:25.199 --> 00:11:32.039 And you have to imagine if you're an old farmer in a place no one cares about, and one day 00:11:32.039 --> 00:11:37.079 these mighty men of David from Jerusalem show up to your door and they say, show us your 00:11:37.079 --> 00:11:39.039 sons. 00:11:39.039 --> 00:11:40.439 That's unnerving. 00:11:40.439 --> 00:11:44.759 And from that day on, right, isn't there something in the back of your mind wondering, when are 00:11:44.759 --> 00:11:47.399 they going to come for my son? 00:11:47.399 --> 00:11:52.759 When is David going to use my son to grow his nation? 00:11:52.759 --> 00:11:58.519 And of course, war is not always evil, but I think that's in this context, that is what 00:11:58.519 --> 00:12:02.840 this passage is getting at, is that David is consolidating power when God has not demanded 00:12:02.840 --> 00:12:06.399 it in the first place. 00:12:06.399 --> 00:12:11.879 And Walter Bruggeman, he's a commentator on this passage, he calls this an act of bureaucratic 00:12:11.879 --> 00:12:12.879 terrorism. 00:12:12.879 --> 00:12:19.480 And in the end, it takes nine months to count some 1.3 million men. 00:12:19.480 --> 00:12:23.840 And again, what we see is the effect of David's sin. 00:12:23.840 --> 00:12:25.399 The sin is the taking of the census. 00:12:25.399 --> 00:12:30.000 We don't know what's going on inside David's heart, whether it's pride, whether he just 00:12:30.000 --> 00:12:34.559 thinks he can get away with it, whether it's fear, like he's worried about people at the 00:12:34.559 --> 00:12:36.519 door. 00:12:36.519 --> 00:12:41.240 We don't know, but what we do know, and the point that I want to make here in this first 00:12:41.240 --> 00:12:44.519 part is that God was right to be angry. 00:12:44.519 --> 00:12:49.960 And sometimes we're afraid to talk about God's anger. 00:12:49.960 --> 00:12:54.320 And I think maybe we're afraid to talk about God's anger because we subconsciously think 00:12:54.320 --> 00:12:57.960 that God's anger and his love are mutually exclusive. 00:12:57.960 --> 00:13:02.680 So if we talk about God's anger, we're saying that he can't be loving. 00:13:02.680 --> 00:13:09.480 Or it may be that we're afraid to talk about God's anger because it makes God look like 00:13:09.480 --> 00:13:11.120 a bad guy. 00:13:11.120 --> 00:13:17.320 That's never how the Bible, the Bible's never afraid to talk about a God who is angry because 00:13:17.320 --> 00:13:24.200 in the scriptures, God's anger is not a sign that he is uncontrollably emotional. 00:13:24.200 --> 00:13:28.240 And it's much less a sign, it's not a sign that he's evil. 00:13:28.240 --> 00:13:34.399 What it is is, it's a sign that he is just and that he cares so much about what goes 00:13:34.399 --> 00:13:40.759 on in this world that when he sees injustice, he will not let it go unpunished ultimately. 00:13:40.759 --> 00:13:48.840 So God loves David and we've seen this throughout 1st and 2nd Samuel. 00:13:48.840 --> 00:13:52.559 But that doesn't mean that he can't be angry with David's sin. 00:13:52.559 --> 00:13:59.399 And he disciplines David and he hates the sin in David so much that he will put measures 00:13:59.399 --> 00:14:02.559 in place to keep David from sinning. 00:14:02.559 --> 00:14:08.720 And he will pursue David until David turns back to him. 00:14:08.720 --> 00:14:16.840 You know, and there is a really sad truth about God's anger that a person can so much 00:14:16.840 --> 00:14:24.320 reject God's love and with such a finality that in the end, all they know of God is his 00:14:24.320 --> 00:14:30.680 anger to the point where God can look at a person and say, depart from me, I never knew 00:14:30.680 --> 00:14:32.960 you. 00:14:32.960 --> 00:14:39.320 But there is a kind of anger and a kind of punishment in God whose root is not hatred 00:14:39.320 --> 00:14:43.080 but it's love and it's the love of a father. 00:14:43.080 --> 00:14:50.519 And if you're a Christian, it is right to say that God is angry with whatever sin exists 00:14:50.519 --> 00:14:58.960 in you and he will pursue those sins in you and in me relentlessly until they are erased 00:14:58.960 --> 00:15:02.879 from our hearts or as Paul puts it, until they're murdered. 00:15:02.879 --> 00:15:07.279 Paul uses violent language to talk about the way that God wants to destroy the sin that's 00:15:07.279 --> 00:15:08.759 inside of us. 00:15:08.759 --> 00:15:15.559 But he will do that not to destroy you but to make you perfect and to make you in the 00:15:15.559 --> 00:15:22.200 image of his son so that he can use his anger as a tool for mercy in us. 00:15:22.200 --> 00:15:28.960 That's why Proverbs and then Hebrews quotes Proverbs and Hebrews says, my son, do not 00:15:28.960 --> 00:15:35.120 despise the Lord's discipline or be weary of his reproof because the Lord disciplines 00:15:35.120 --> 00:15:40.200 those he loves as a father, the son he delights in. 00:15:40.200 --> 00:15:43.800 God disciplines those who he delights in. 00:15:43.800 --> 00:15:51.040 So his anger can be painful as it is in this passage but it's also just and it can be restorative. 00:15:51.040 --> 00:15:55.600 So the first question that this passage gives us is why the anger? 00:15:55.600 --> 00:16:01.480 And I hope I've shown that God is angry at this census not because his anger is arbitrary 00:16:01.480 --> 00:16:07.720 but because the census represented something dangerous in the life of Israel. 00:16:07.720 --> 00:16:11.720 The second question I want to ask is why the mercy? 00:16:11.720 --> 00:16:17.680 So this passage moves from anger to punishment to mercy. 00:16:17.679 --> 00:16:25.959 And I want to ask why the mercy and this is a specific question, why in this passage does 00:16:25.959 --> 00:16:30.159 God choose to be merciful to David? 00:16:30.159 --> 00:16:32.159 And so you see what happens? 00:16:32.159 --> 00:16:37.359 The prophet Gad comes to David as a result of God's anger at what David has done. 00:16:37.359 --> 00:16:40.799 And he says, David, I'm going to give you three choices. 00:16:40.799 --> 00:16:44.319 Pestilence, plague, or you'll be chased. 00:16:44.319 --> 00:16:46.839 You'll have wars at your doorstep. 00:16:46.840 --> 00:16:54.440 And David says in verse 14, let me fall into the hand of the Lord for his mercy is great. 00:16:54.440 --> 00:16:58.080 So that rules out one of the options, war. 00:16:58.080 --> 00:17:02.440 And then what follows is this strange scene, right? 00:17:02.440 --> 00:17:06.480 I mean, this whole passage is strange but the strange scene where pestilence comes into 00:17:06.480 --> 00:17:14.279 the land and working in that pestilence is an angel bringing death. 00:17:14.279 --> 00:17:18.559 And I think twice in this passage you see the phrase from Dan to bear sheba. 00:17:18.559 --> 00:17:25.480 That's a Hebrew colloquialism which might be like saying from Shetland to the borders. 00:17:25.480 --> 00:17:28.680 Dan to bear sheba is saying the whole length of the countryside. 00:17:28.680 --> 00:17:36.480 This angel is going about bringing death and punishing David and the people for their sins. 00:17:36.480 --> 00:17:44.079 And then in the midst of that, the angel stops where it is because God, it says God, he relented. 00:17:44.079 --> 00:17:53.199 And then after the angel relents, God looks up to the Lord and says in verse 17, behold, 00:17:53.199 --> 00:17:54.199 I have sinned. 00:17:54.199 --> 00:17:58.879 I've done wickedly, but these sheep, what have they done? 00:17:58.879 --> 00:18:04.000 Please let your hand be against me and against my father's house. 00:18:04.000 --> 00:18:10.399 And again, I don't know whether it was arrogance or whether it was fear or what it was that 00:18:10.400 --> 00:18:16.440 caused David to take the census and to try to consolidate power. 00:18:16.440 --> 00:18:22.519 But what this pestilence does is it reveals to David the reality of his situation that 00:18:22.519 --> 00:18:28.600 was true all along, which is that he is totally dependent on God for everything he has in 00:18:28.600 --> 00:18:30.280 this life. 00:18:30.280 --> 00:18:32.240 He thought that he could consolidate power. 00:18:32.240 --> 00:18:34.360 He thought that he could take control. 00:18:34.359 --> 00:18:40.759 He thought that he could manage his destiny and God brings him to his knees and shows 00:18:40.759 --> 00:18:46.479 him that he is the one that's always been in control all along. 00:18:46.479 --> 00:18:50.799 But there's also something positive about this too, because what does David do when 00:18:50.799 --> 00:18:52.639 he's brought to his knees? 00:18:52.639 --> 00:18:56.519 He doesn't double down on his sin and try to consolidate power even more. 00:18:56.519 --> 00:19:00.199 He doesn't act like what he was doing really wasn't simple. 00:19:00.199 --> 00:19:03.439 He doesn't say, well, you know, we used to take censuses in the past. 00:19:03.440 --> 00:19:05.559 Why can't I keep doing this anymore? 00:19:05.559 --> 00:19:07.360 Moses took a census. 00:19:07.360 --> 00:19:13.320 Now, what he does is when he realizes he has done wrong, he gets on his knees and he cries 00:19:13.320 --> 00:19:15.680 out to God for mercy. 00:19:15.680 --> 00:19:21.519 And that is what is always so beautiful about David's heart is that when he had nowhere 00:19:21.519 --> 00:19:27.960 else to go, he runs to the only place he was ever meant to go to all along, which is into 00:19:27.960 --> 00:19:30.640 God's mercy. 00:19:30.640 --> 00:19:34.840 And just as a side note, I think it's really significant here. 00:19:34.840 --> 00:19:42.040 If this is true that David was really consolidating power and he begins to see people as means 00:19:42.040 --> 00:19:46.560 to an end, I think it's really significant that in verse 14, you see what David calls 00:19:46.560 --> 00:19:47.560 his people. 00:19:47.560 --> 00:19:50.759 He calls his people, excuse me, verse 17. 00:19:50.759 --> 00:19:53.320 He calls them his sheep. 00:19:53.319 --> 00:20:01.000 And I think in the midst of God punishing David, part of David coming to his senses, 00:20:01.000 --> 00:20:05.200 not his senses, his sin, well, it is, sorry, I'm getting confused about the word senses 00:20:05.200 --> 00:20:08.039 and senses. 00:20:08.039 --> 00:20:15.159 Part of David coming to his senses is seeing his people again, how he was meant to see 00:20:15.159 --> 00:20:20.839 them, which is the sheep that God had called him to shepherd. 00:20:20.839 --> 00:20:25.679 But the question that I'm actually trying to get at right now is why is God merciful 00:20:25.679 --> 00:20:26.679 in this passage? 00:20:26.679 --> 00:20:31.199 And do you see the explanation for why God is merciful in this passage? 00:20:31.199 --> 00:20:33.240 Why does the angel stop? 00:20:33.240 --> 00:20:34.240 Why does God relent? 00:20:34.240 --> 00:20:37.559 Do you see it in the passage? 00:20:37.559 --> 00:20:41.720 You don't see it in the passage because it doesn't say why God relented. 00:20:41.720 --> 00:20:45.119 It just says he relented. 00:20:45.119 --> 00:20:51.119 But I think the explanation comes in verse 14, where David says, let us fall into the 00:20:51.119 --> 00:20:56.359 hands of the Lord, for his mercy is great. 00:20:56.359 --> 00:21:01.119 So David knew something about God that was really important to know in a situation like 00:21:01.119 --> 00:21:08.599 this, which is that the way that he thought about God wasn't as someone who you just hope 00:21:08.599 --> 00:21:14.159 that maybe you'll catch in the right time, you know, because let me put it like this. 00:21:14.160 --> 00:21:19.640 You could fall into the hands of evil men one day and you're at their mercy. 00:21:19.640 --> 00:21:20.640 You're literally at their mercy. 00:21:20.640 --> 00:21:24.400 They could do whatever they wanted to you and they're evil men and you know that. 00:21:24.400 --> 00:21:31.240 You could ask them for mercy and they may show you mercy. 00:21:31.240 --> 00:21:38.759 But when you walk away from that situation, you won't say what wonderful, merciful men 00:21:38.759 --> 00:21:40.000 those evil men were. 00:21:40.000 --> 00:21:44.480 What you'll say is I got lucky because that's not who they are. 00:21:44.480 --> 00:21:49.480 But what David says is what David does is he runs when he's in a jam, he runs into the 00:21:49.480 --> 00:21:55.480 arms of God, not hoping to get lucky, but because he knows the character of God. 00:21:55.480 --> 00:21:59.920 It is God's nature to be merciful. 00:21:59.920 --> 00:22:07.920 David would rather fall into the arms of God than try his luck with human beings. 00:22:07.920 --> 00:22:11.360 He says God is merciful. 00:22:11.360 --> 00:22:18.240 And you know, it's when trials come in our lives, it's hard. 00:22:18.240 --> 00:22:24.080 When trials come in our lives and we can see in those trials the fingerprints of our own 00:22:24.080 --> 00:22:29.920 sin and we know that some of the trials we face, we face because we have done wrong. 00:22:29.920 --> 00:22:33.480 It's almost unbearable. 00:22:33.480 --> 00:22:40.079 And in moments of crisis, one of the temptations can be to hide our face from God and to run 00:22:40.079 --> 00:22:43.360 away from him because we fear him. 00:22:43.360 --> 00:22:47.120 We don't want to face the truth of who we are. 00:22:47.120 --> 00:22:53.120 And I think there's a model in what David does here, which is that when he finds himself 00:22:53.120 --> 00:23:00.799 in misery of his own making and he knows that he has done wrong and he has wronged God, 00:23:00.799 --> 00:23:08.159 even so he knows that his only hope is to not hide from but God, but to move towards 00:23:08.159 --> 00:23:14.000 mercy and the only place that mercy is found is in God himself. 00:23:14.000 --> 00:23:19.759 God calls us to go where mercy can be found and that's in himself. 00:23:19.759 --> 00:23:25.200 So we've talked about why the anger and we've talked about why the mercy. 00:23:25.200 --> 00:23:28.279 And thirdly, I want to talk about why the altar. 00:23:28.279 --> 00:23:33.879 And you see this in the last section and when I say why the altar, again, I'm asking a basic 00:23:33.879 --> 00:23:37.480 question, why does David build the altar? 00:23:37.480 --> 00:23:43.559 Because sometimes people make sacrifices to God simply because they're rejoicing. 00:23:43.559 --> 00:23:49.599 And if you weren't reading this passage closely, you could think, well, God was angry. 00:23:49.599 --> 00:23:55.000 God showed David mercy and in response to that mercy, David goes and builds an altar 00:23:55.000 --> 00:24:01.680 to celebrate this merciful God and that sounds nice and it's always a good idea to celebrate 00:24:01.680 --> 00:24:03.759 God when he's merciful. 00:24:03.759 --> 00:24:05.319 But that's not what happens here. 00:24:05.319 --> 00:24:11.119 Do you see in the text why God, why David builds an altar? 00:24:11.119 --> 00:24:18.480 In verse 18 it says, Gad the prophet came to David that day and said to him, go and 00:24:18.480 --> 00:24:23.500 raise up an altar to the Lord on the threshing floor. 00:24:23.500 --> 00:24:31.759 The reason that David builds an altar is because God commands him to build an altar. 00:24:31.759 --> 00:24:36.839 And what that means is that the altar, the role the altar plays in this story is not 00:24:36.839 --> 00:24:38.480 an appendix. 00:24:38.480 --> 00:24:43.920 It's not saying again that God, that David built the altar just to celebrate what had 00:24:43.920 --> 00:24:46.039 already happened. 00:24:46.039 --> 00:24:53.279 But the altar was actually essential to what God was doing in this moment. 00:24:53.279 --> 00:24:55.240 The sacrifice is necessary to the story. 00:24:55.240 --> 00:25:02.079 Or if I could put it another way, David's guilt is not finally dealt with the moment 00:25:02.079 --> 00:25:03.799 he asks for forgiveness. 00:25:03.799 --> 00:25:09.279 It wasn't enough for David just to ask for forgiveness and to ask for mercy. 00:25:09.279 --> 00:25:12.879 David also had to offer a sacrifice. 00:25:12.879 --> 00:25:19.639 He had to pay a penalty for the guilt that he owed to God. 00:25:19.640 --> 00:25:23.560 And so the altar is not arbitrary and the assumption here, and this is an important 00:25:23.560 --> 00:25:28.440 assumption, the assumption here is that God is not just merciful. 00:25:28.440 --> 00:25:32.160 He is merciful, but he's also just. 00:25:32.160 --> 00:25:39.840 And that means that when God shows David mercy, justice must also be done, which means that 00:25:39.840 --> 00:25:42.680 David's sin has to be accounted for. 00:25:42.680 --> 00:25:46.960 There has to be a payment made for what David has done. 00:25:46.960 --> 00:25:55.480 And that's illustrating a universal truth, right? 00:25:55.480 --> 00:26:02.240 Whenever God is merciful, and this is always ever and always true. 00:26:02.240 --> 00:26:06.559 Whenever God is merciful, he is always just. 00:26:06.559 --> 00:26:11.480 And that means that whenever God is merciful to us, he is always just. 00:26:11.480 --> 00:26:16.079 And whatever sins we have ever committed, they have to be paid for. 00:26:16.079 --> 00:26:17.359 They have to be atoned for. 00:26:17.359 --> 00:26:21.039 They have to be dealt with. 00:26:21.039 --> 00:26:30.559 And that means that when we go to God and we ask for God's mercy to cover our sins and 00:26:30.559 --> 00:26:36.919 to forgive us, we need to do more than just ask for forgiveness. 00:26:36.919 --> 00:26:41.419 We have to go to God hanging on to an altar. 00:26:41.419 --> 00:26:44.399 We don't just need mercy. 00:26:44.400 --> 00:26:50.759 We need an altar that we can take to God and say, God, you see here, my sins have been 00:26:50.759 --> 00:26:51.759 paid for. 00:26:51.759 --> 00:26:54.280 They've been atoned for. 00:26:54.280 --> 00:26:58.400 And that's what we have in Jesus Christ. 00:26:58.400 --> 00:27:04.120 We go to God and God shows us the gravity of our sins. 00:27:04.120 --> 00:27:11.280 And we see the weight, the awful penalty that such sins would require. 00:27:11.279 --> 00:27:17.680 And then we look at Jesus and we look at God and we say, you see, there has been a sacrifice 00:27:17.680 --> 00:27:21.119 made and these sins have been paid for. 00:27:21.119 --> 00:27:27.079 And the beauty of a story like that is one of the things I love about this story in David 00:27:27.079 --> 00:27:31.920 is it's not just that David figured out a way to manipulate God. 00:27:31.920 --> 00:27:35.639 He worked his way around the system and figured out how to earn God's mercy. 00:27:35.640 --> 00:27:41.600 God came to David and said, here's how you can be made right with me. 00:27:41.600 --> 00:27:46.720 And what God does for us in Jesus Christ is he commands a payment to be made for our 00:27:46.720 --> 00:27:51.759 sins, but he's also the one that comes in the person of Jesus Christ and pays for those 00:27:51.759 --> 00:27:54.040 sins himself. 00:27:54.040 --> 00:28:03.440 God demands a sacrifice and he comes and he becomes a sacrifice. 00:28:03.440 --> 00:28:06.000 I think that's good news. 00:28:06.000 --> 00:28:08.559 But there were four questions I wanted to ask tonight. 00:28:08.559 --> 00:28:13.039 So that was why the anger, why the mercy, why the altar. 00:28:13.039 --> 00:28:22.279 And then finally, why does the story end here, this bizarre, theologically awkward story? 00:28:22.279 --> 00:28:28.920 And here's the answer I want to propose. 00:28:28.920 --> 00:28:31.240 You think here is David. 00:28:31.240 --> 00:28:33.680 Think about the person that we've seen in David. 00:28:33.680 --> 00:28:38.640 He is, no one disputes the fact that he was Israel's greatest king. 00:28:38.640 --> 00:28:40.799 He conquered giants. 00:28:40.799 --> 00:28:42.759 He slayed the people's enemies. 00:28:42.759 --> 00:28:48.240 He was a warrior and we've seen him fall, but even so, he's still the greatest king 00:28:48.240 --> 00:28:50.839 that Israel ever had. 00:28:50.839 --> 00:28:58.160 And this could, we could go out on this story and say he was unmatched in his greatness. 00:28:58.160 --> 00:29:05.800 But what Psalm 24 does is it brings the greatest king Israel had ever known to its knees. 00:29:05.800 --> 00:29:14.440 And it reminds even the king that all he has in the presence of God, all he has to stand 00:29:14.440 --> 00:29:19.080 before the presence of God is God's own mercy. 00:29:19.080 --> 00:29:20.960 Where does David's power lay? 00:29:20.960 --> 00:29:26.040 It doesn't lay in the strength of his armies, which he wanted it to lay in. 00:29:26.039 --> 00:29:33.720 It lays in the fact that his God sees him and loves him and forgives him despite of his 00:29:33.720 --> 00:29:34.879 inequities. 00:29:34.879 --> 00:29:37.559 And that's a truth that lingers for all of us, right? 00:29:37.559 --> 00:29:45.440 To be a follower of God is to base our identity completely on God's love and on God's mercy. 00:29:45.440 --> 00:29:52.000 So that when we come before God and we ask ourselves, you know, we're haunted by these 00:29:52.000 --> 00:29:55.720 questions, what right do you have to talk to God? 00:29:55.720 --> 00:30:00.519 The answer that we have is that God is merciful and that he's provided a sacrifice. 00:30:00.519 --> 00:30:04.240 And I think that this story humbled David. 00:30:04.240 --> 00:30:08.839 It brought him to his knees, but it also caused him to rejoice. 00:30:08.839 --> 00:30:15.039 That was good news to him that even though he had sinned, God could redeem him. 00:30:15.039 --> 00:30:22.519 And there's a really interesting way this story plays into the rest of the Old Testament, 00:30:22.519 --> 00:30:28.680 which is if you go read the same story in 1 Chronicles 22, 21, when it gets to 1 Chronicles 00:30:28.680 --> 00:30:29.680 22. 00:30:29.680 --> 00:30:37.039 So Arun of the Jebusite, we know later if you read 1 Chronicles 21, is sitting in Jerusalem. 00:30:37.039 --> 00:30:40.720 That's where the angel stops his destruction. 00:30:40.720 --> 00:30:48.559 And just after David makes his sacrifice at the threshing floor of Arun of the Jebusite, 00:30:48.559 --> 00:30:54.759 in 1 Chronicles 22, 1, David stands on the threshing floor and as he finishes his sacrifice, 00:30:54.759 --> 00:31:01.559 he says, here shall be the house of the Lord God and here the altar of burnt offering for 00:31:01.559 --> 00:31:02.559 Israel. 00:31:02.559 --> 00:31:09.119 And that moment, he begins to make plans for what will become the temple in Jerusalem. 00:31:09.119 --> 00:31:13.639 So he builds the temple in Jerusalem at this site. 00:31:13.640 --> 00:31:21.320 And I think that's so powerful and so suggestive because this was the site where the bloodshed 00:31:21.320 --> 00:31:26.080 stopped and where God relented and showed his people mercy. 00:31:26.080 --> 00:31:32.920 And it's also the place where David realized that his whole identity revolved around God 00:31:32.920 --> 00:31:36.600 being merciful to him, not how powerful he was. 00:31:36.600 --> 00:31:43.200 And so what this does is, as David sets this temple in Jerusalem, it's this visible reminder 00:31:43.200 --> 00:31:50.080 forever and always that what we all have in common as we gather here and worship and as 00:31:50.080 --> 00:31:56.000 those Jews worshiped in Jerusalem was the fact that we bring nothing to the table when 00:31:56.000 --> 00:31:58.960 we come and worship and we speak to God. 00:31:58.960 --> 00:32:04.000 All we bring to the table is what God has given us, which is the faith we have in Jesus 00:32:04.000 --> 00:32:11.559 Christ that he is the sacrifice that's covered our sins. 00:32:11.559 --> 00:32:15.079 I think I finished my sermon about two minutes early, so I'm going to add one more fact to 00:32:15.079 --> 00:32:19.079 this. 00:32:19.079 --> 00:32:23.919 There's a suggestion made by one theologian that I want to leave you with, which is that 00:32:23.919 --> 00:32:28.919 if you go all the way back to the beginning of 1 Samuel, the story is told of Hannah, 00:32:28.919 --> 00:32:30.720 who was barren. 00:32:30.720 --> 00:32:36.599 And Hannah was a woman without hope because in those days, to be barren was essentially 00:32:36.599 --> 00:32:38.319 to be without hope. 00:32:38.319 --> 00:32:44.119 And she would go to the temple year after year and she would pray to God for a child. 00:32:44.119 --> 00:32:50.879 And here is this woman who all she has going for her is her prayers. 00:32:50.879 --> 00:32:57.240 And God answers her prayers and she sees that it was right that her only hope in life was 00:32:57.240 --> 00:32:59.639 God. 00:32:59.639 --> 00:33:03.439 That's how the book of 1 Samuel starts. 00:33:03.439 --> 00:33:07.599 And then think of how 2 Samuel ends. 00:33:07.599 --> 00:33:14.719 A man who is as great as he could be and yet the greatest lesson of his life is that he's 00:33:14.719 --> 00:33:20.519 just like Hannah, that all he has before God is a prayer and a prayer that God can listen 00:33:20.519 --> 00:33:21.519 to him. 00:33:21.519 --> 00:33:23.799 And that's all we have. 00:33:23.799 --> 00:33:24.799 Let's pray. 00:33:24.799 --> 00:33:30.119 Heavenly Father, we praise you that you are our God and highest heaven. 00:33:30.119 --> 00:33:32.959 And yet you love us and you redeem us and you show us mercy. 00:33:32.960 --> 00:33:38.120 And we pray that you would make us people who are loving and merciful and who want to 00:33:38.120 --> 00:33:40.720 share the good news of this gospel far and wide. 00:33:40.720 --> 00:33:42.840 And we ask all this in your son's name. 00:33:42.839 --> 00:34:03.519 Amen.