11-24-13. 2 Samuel 24:1-25. A MAN WHO KNEW HOW TO REPENT-my devotional

2 Samuel 24:1-25                                                                                Monday, November 18, 2013

Key verse 24:24                                                                                  Kevin E. Jesmer

“ But the king said to Araunah, “No, but I will buy it from you for a price. I will not offer burnt offerings to the Lord my God that cost me nothing.” So David bought the threshing floor and the oxen for fifty shekels of silver.”

Dear Lord heavenly Father thankyou for blessing this Sunday and the listening of the Webster family. May you bless that family to preach the Gospel through song. May you work through them to bring the joy of Christ to the whole world. Help our own family to develop our own singing so that we can bring glory to your name through music, I pray now for your word to dwell in my heart at this time. I pray in Jesus’ name. Amen!

Part 1: “These Are But Sheep” (1-17).

Verses 1-17, “Again the anger of the Lord was kindled against Israel, and he incited David against them, saying, “Go, number Israel and Judah.” 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.” 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?” 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. 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 Danthey 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. 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. 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.” 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 threeyears 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.” 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.”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. 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 was compelled to count his fighting men.  It was not necessary to count the fighting men. What could his motives be? He might have begun to trust in his army and the numbers of his soldiers and not on God. And so he counted his soldiers, wondering if he had just the right amount of men to ward of any invasion. Maybe he was admiring his army and wanted to count his men like a man counting his hoard of gold coins. Maybe he wanted to know the numbers because he was tempted to boast in the strength of his men. You may wrap this entire act up under the banner of pride. God was not pleased with the motives of his counting his men. Maybe if he was counting them so that he could fit them with new shoes or armor would have been alright. But his motive was wrong. David was faltering on the verge of a major sin that could jeopardize his whole kingdom.

Joab knew that David was making a huge mistake.  And so he tried to dissuade his King in verse 3, “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?”  Thisis amazing, because Joab was a totally worldly guy. We would think that he is devoid of all spiritual sense. But in this instance he had more spiritual sense than King David and God was working through Joab to help King David to change the course of his ways.

There are times when God sends someone into our lives to get us to repent of our sins and stop straying. It may surprise us that such a person may not even be a Christian! We need to be open to the people that God sends and be humble and listen.

David usually was a humble man of God, but at this instance he persisted in his own way and forced the issue and later his people had to pay the price for his pride.  He later regretted what he had done but for now he persisted and afterward, he was conscience-stricken and repented, asking God’s forgiveness. Because of David’s sin, God punished his people. David chose to suffer at the hands of the Lord. A terrible plague came upon Israel. The Lord grieved, and David was a broken-hearted shepherd to see his sheep suffer because of his sin (17).

The question comes to mind, “Why was God so serious about his counting the army? After all, all kings, all around the world counted their armies. Don’t they need to know how large their armies were?” But David was no ordinary king. He was a man after God’s own heart. God wanted to establish his kingdom on righteousness and on faith. God worked through him to establish the Kingdom of Israel. It needed to have a very spiritual foundation, a foundation like no other foundation in the world. This was ultra serious, for it was through the house and line of David that God would be sending the Messiah, Jesus, 1,000 years in the future.

When we start to build something, we need to make sure that the foundation of what we build on is the Gospel and on faith. Christian marriages can fall into this category. A business, a career and a ministry…anything we hope to be blessed must be built on faith right from the beginning. God will try his best to help this to happen, for he surely wants work though the above mentioned institutions to bless the world and reveal Christ.

We must also know that our acts of pride and our lack of faith can also hurt a lot of people. David’s sin caused the death of thousands of his own people. Likewise when we don’t build the foundations of our marriages, for example on faith, we may be causing our kids and spouse and future generations to suffer. It is true! We have a responsibility towards our future generations to build a heritage of faith in Christ. Many people depend on that.

Part 2: “I will Not Give God What Cost Me Nothing” (18-25).

Verses 18-25, “¹⁸ And Gad came that day to David and said to him, “Go up, raise an altar to the Lord on the threshing floor of Araunah the Jebusite.” ¹⁹ So David went up at Gad’s word, as the Lord commanded. ²⁰ And when Araunah looked down, he saw the king and his servants coming on toward him. And Araunah went out and paid homage to the king with his face to the ground. ²¹ And Araunah said, “Why has my lord the king come to his servant?” David said, “To buy the threshing floor from you, in order to build an altar to the Lord, that the plague may be averted from the people.” ²² Then Araunah said to David, “Let my lord the king take and offer up what seems good to him. Here are the oxen for the burnt offering and the threshing sledges and the yokes of the oxen for the wood. ²³ All this, O king, Araunah gives to the king.” And Araunah said to the king, “May the Lord your God accept you.” ²⁴ But the king said to Araunah, “No, but I will buy it from you for a price. I will not offer burnt offerings to the Lord my God that cost me nothing.”So David bought the threshing floor and the oxen for fifty shekels of silver. ²⁵ And David built there an altar to the Lord and offered burnt offerings and peace offerings. So the Lord responded to the plea for the land, and the plague was averted from Israel.”

Though David had sinned, God did not give up on David. He sent his servant Gad, to David to help him to repent by directing him to raise an altar on the threshing floor of Araunah the Jebusite. David, recognizing the wrong he did, obeyed and went.

David was intent on building an altar according to the Lord’s instructions. Araunah was so moved by David’s humility and repentance, when the king wanted to buy his threshing floor, that he offered to give it to David free of charge. But David insisted on paying. He said, ““No, but I will buy it from you for a price. I will not offer burnt offerings to the Lord my God that cost me nothing.”  David wanted to sincerely repent. He didn’t want to cheapen the experience. He knew about God’s justice. He knew that a price must be paid for sin. We would have to pay that price for our own sins. But the price is so high. David’s one sin here, cost the lives of 70,000 men and now the price of the threshing floor and the untold inner anguish of millions of hearts. This is the cost of one man’s one sin! How can I ever pay for the many, many sins that have occurred in my life over the years? I can not pay. But there is one way that my sins can be paid for in full. That is through the shed blood of Jesus Christ on the cross. Because his holy blood was shed on the cross, the price for my sin was paid and the Father can say to me, “Kevin, you are forgiven! Come and spend eternity with me in my kingdom.” What a great gift! What a great salvation!

There is no easy repentance. It is like surgery of the heart, getting rid of the cancer of sin. But it brings healing to our hearts. David was like this. He dug deep. He was ultra sincere. When he repented he really meant. God accepted his sincere repentance and we know this because the plague abated but also because the sight of David’s sincere repentance became the future site of the Temple of God. David’s faith and repentance represented vividly what God intend for the Temple and the also the future cross of Jesus, to be a place of repentance and returning to the Lord.

Do we need to always be so heartfelt and sincere when we repent? It would be nice. But our sincerity can not be another human effort to procure the forgiveness of sins from God. We cannot think that if I achieve a certain level of sincerity then God will accept me. Not really. It is only through faith in the shed blood of Jesus that we can be forgiven. We may not be satisfied with the level of sincerity that someone we know generated. But if they repented and accepted Jesus then they are absolutely forgiven. In this case David had sincerity and faith.

Our sincere repentance can become like the site of the temple, a place of remembrance where we came back to the Lord. The hotel in which Julie and I repentant of our sins and made a new start in our marriage, at the “Weekend To Remember” conference, has become a sort of memorial site of a new beginning where we were blessed by God. Every time I drive by the hotel, I say, “Isn’t that the conference site? It is a special place for me. I am reminded that God is with us and wants to bless our lives. May our lives all be filled with sites, like the threshing floor of Araunah where we can always return to meet the Lord personally and renew our walk with him.

Lord, teach me to repent before you. May my life be filled with many memorials to repentance and restoration.

One word: Sincere repentance before the Lord.