How To Succeed At Ruining Your Life
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David. Yes, King David.
David. Yes, King David.
1 Again the anger of the Lord was kindled against Israel, and he incited David against them, saying, “Go, number Israel and Judah.”
Again. Why again? Because earlier, in 21:1, God had been angry at Israel. And the “again” makes it a repeat of that.... you could say that Israel were repeat offenders.
God’s anger was against Israel, it is an unspecified sin.
And so, God incited David to number Israel. to count them.
Now suddenly, you are asking how could God make David do something that ultimately he himself would call sin, right?
Well, you’d be interested to know that this story is recounted in 1 Chronicles 21 as well.... and the scholarly folk have tried to explain this away instead of just explaining it. How could Chronicles attribute this to Satan and Samuel attributes it to God?
And I’ll give you the best answer I can find. It is what is called the harmonistic approach, i.e the gospel harmonies..... but i digress.... think of Job.... God was permissive to Satan and Satan took as much rope as he could. that is what this means.
paradoxically, a God directed affliction can be labeled a ”messenger of Satan” as in 2 Corinthians 12.7.
Another thing… why? God had given Israel the timing of the census- this was out of sync. Secondly, any census required that redemption money be given to the Lord- and this census did not take the census money. See Exodus 30.12.....
12 “When you take the census of the people of Israel, then each shall give a ransom for his life to the Lord when you number them, that there be no plague among them when you number them.
2 So the king said to Joab, the commander of the army, who was with him, “Go through all the tribes of Israel, from Dan to Beersheba, and number the people, that I may know the number of the people.”
Count Israel and Judah.
3 But Joab said to the king, “May the Lord your God add to the people a hundred times as many as they are, while the eyes of my lord the king still see it, but why does my lord the king delight in this thing?”
Joab’s point is that if God multiplied the people by 100, they would still all be subjects of the King.
Joab knew immediately that this would be unpleasing to God and would bring guilt on Israel,
4 But the king’s word prevailed against Joab and the commanders of the army. So Joab and the commanders of the army went out from the presence of the king to number the people of Israel.
David wins. They go to count.
Watch the map that follows..... they go counterclockwise through the tribes of Israel, and they do not count the lands that King David had conquered.
5 They crossed the Jordan and began from Aroer, and from the city that is in the middle of the valley, toward Gad and on to Jazer.
6 Then they came to Gilead, and to Kadesh in the land of the Hittites; and they came to Dan, and from Dan they went around to Sidon,
7 and came to the fortress of Tyre and to all the cities of the Hivites and Canaanites; and they went out to the Negeb of Judah at Beersheba.
8 So when they had gone through all the land, they came to Jerusalem at the end of nine months and twenty days.
10 months have passed, and David could have stopped the census at any time- but he did not. The wise counsel of Joab was ignored. Stubbornness and its consequences.
Stop and consider this: It was written by Warren Wiersbe:
David’s sin was not a hasty thing; he carried it out with cool, calculated precision. He was rebelling against God! There is an interesting series of contrasts between this sin and his sin with Bathsheba: (1) this was a sin of the spirit (pride) while the other was a sin of the flesh; (2) here he acted with deliberate persistence, while his sin with Bathsheba came as the result of the sudden overwhelming desires of the flesh; (3) this sin involved the nation, and 70,000 people died; his other sin was a family matter, with 4 people dying. (4) Yet in both sins, God gave David time to repent, but he waited too long.
How often does God wait on us to repent and our stubborn heart or fleshly desires get in the way?
9 And Joab gave the sum of the numbering of the people to the king: in Israel there were 800,000 valiant men who drew the sword, and the men of Judah were 500,000.
Interesting factoid: Joab actually did not finish the count- he did not count anyone less that 20 years old because the Lord had promised to number Israel as numerous as the stars of the sky (1 Chronicles 27.23-24...
You may be wondering what transgression that David committed. It is not so much the direct command to not count them, as much as it is that he was discounting the faithfulness of God in doing so. Was he so unsure of Himself that he needed to know how many there were, and in doing so revealed just how unsure he was of God?
2 Samuel 24:10 (ESV)
10 But David’s heart struck him after he had numbered the people. And 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 done very foolishly.”
David realizes both Joab and God were right.... he is conscience stricken… see 1 Chronicles 21.6
6 But he did not include Levi and Benjamin in the numbering, for the king’s command was abhorrent to Joab.
7 But God was displeased with this thing, and he struck Israel.
David was convicted in his heart before anything happened regarding judgment. He had time to repent.
When was David, another time , convicted in his heart. In the case of Bathsheba. Tell the Cliff’s notes version of David and Bathsheba.
In 2 Samuel 12:13, when David sinned, he says, “I have sinned.” Nathan approached him, and he said I have sinned against the Lord. Here, he says, I have sinned greatly.
Why is that? Doesn’t it seem to you that adultery and murder are greater than pride? I bet you’ll agree.
Yet, from God’s vantage point, David’s sin of the census was greater in its disobedience and consequence. Take note that Jesus seems to have more forgiveness for publicans and sinners than he has time for the proud and the rebellious.
THE AWFUL RESULTS OF PRIDE AND STUBBORN DISOBEDIENCE ARE DECEPTIVE TO US AND GOD SEES THEM AS THE GREATER SIN many times.
11 And when David arose in the morning, the word of the Lord came to the prophet Gad, David’s seer, saying,
12 “Go and say to David, ‘Thus says the Lord, Three things I offer you. Choose one of them, that I may do it to you.’ ”
13 So Gad came to David and told him, and said to him, “Shall three 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 decide what answer I shall return to him who sent me.”
The shorter the time period the greater the severity of the punishment.
David was given time to think it over.... there was one thing David should have known, and apparently did… God is merciful. See Neh 9.19
19 you in your great mercies did not forsake them in the wilderness. The pillar of cloud to lead them in the way did not depart from them by day, nor the pillar of fire by night to light for them the way by which they should go.
27 Therefore you gave them into the hand of their enemies, who made them suffer. And in the time of their suffering they cried out to you and you heard them from heaven, and according to your great mercies you gave them saviors who saved them from the hand of their enemies.
156 Great is your mercy, O Lord; give me life according to your rules.
18 O my God, incline your ear and hear. Open your eyes and see our desolations, and the city that is called by your name. For we do not present our pleas before you because of our righteousness, but because of your great mercy.
War would place the nation at the mercy of its enemies: famine would make it dependent on corn-merchants, who might greatly aggravate the misery of scarcity: only in the pestilence—some form of plague sudden and mysterious in its attack, and baffling the medical knowledge of the time—would the punishment come directly from God, and depend immediately upon His Will. (Kirkpatrick, The Second Book of Samuel, p. 228)
14 Then David said to Gad, “I am in great distress. Let us fall into the hand of the Lord, for his mercy is great; but let me not fall into the hand of man.”
David would desire to fall into the hands of the Lord rather than into the hands of men.
15 So the Lord sent a pestilence on Israel from the morning until the appointed time. And there died of the people from Dan to Beersheba 70,000 men.
The country had suffered great loss, and now the capital city of Jerusalem is the target:
16 And when the angel stretched out his hand toward Jerusalem to destroy it, the Lord relented from the calamity and said to the angel who was working destruction among the people, “It is enough; now stay 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 the people, and said, “Behold, I have sinned, and I have done wickedly. But these sheep, what have they done? Please let your hand be against me and against my father’s house.”
David’s shepherd heart kicked in, it came back, he prayed for the people. Keep in mind, (24:1), that God had a definite cause against Israel as a nation and was using David’s sin as the opportunity to judge the people. What was their sin? Not sure, but remember just 9 chapters earlier Absalom, David’s son, had stolen the kingdom from his father- and the majority of Israel went over to him. See 2 Samuel 15.13…2 Samuel 15.13
13 And a messenger came to David, saying, “The hearts of the men of Israel have gone after Absalom.”
Even though God had an issue with the nation, David interceded for them....
Rather than witness the further destruction of his men, he calls the wrath of God down on himself and his own family (cf. Moses’ similar plea in Exod 32:32; cf. also Deut 9:26–27).
David walked by sight and not by faith.
The size of his kingdom became a stepping stone to success instead of a building block in God’s kingdom.
His head became prideful and blocked his heart from being humble.
David’s failure to be sensitive to the sin in his life over a 10 month period hardened his heart to the blessing of God in Israel and his own life.
Ironically, Read 1 Samuel 16.6-13
6 When they came, he looked on Eliab and thought, “Surely the Lord’s anointed is before him.”
7 But the Lord said to Samuel, “Do not look on his appearance or on the height of his stature, because I have rejected him. For the Lord sees not as man sees: man looks on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart.”
8 Then Jesse called Abinadab and made him pass before Samuel. And he said, “Neither has the Lord chosen this one.”
9 Then Jesse made Shammah pass by. And he said, “Neither has the Lord chosen this one.”
10 And Jesse made seven of his sons pass before Samuel. And Samuel said to Jesse, “The Lord has not chosen these.”
11 Then Samuel said to Jesse, “Are all your sons here?” And he said, “There remains yet the youngest, but behold, he is keeping the sheep.” And Samuel said to Jesse, “Send and get him, for we will not sit down till he comes here.”
12 And he sent and brought him in. Now he was ruddy and had beautiful eyes and was handsome. And the Lord said, “Arise, anoint him, for this is he.”
13 Then Samuel took the horn of oil and anointed him in the midst of his brothers. And the Spirit of the Lord rushed upon David from that day forward. And Samuel rose up and went to Ramah.
An Ounce Of God’s Blessing Is Worth A Ton Of Earthly Success
An Ounce Of God’s Blessing Is Worth A Ton Of Earthly Success
Clydesdale horses weigh a ton each on average.
The atom that destroyed Hiroshima was not visible to the naked eye.
18 Pride goes before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall.
12 Before destruction a man’s heart is haughty, but humility comes before honor.
2 When pride comes, then comes disgrace, but with the humble is wisdom.