Judgement Belongs To The Lord

Judgement belongs to The Lord

2nd Samuel 24:17 - When David saw the angel who was striking down the people, he said to the Lord, “I have sinned; I, the shepherd, have done wrong. These are but sheep. What have they done? Let your hand fall on me and my family.”

Many people have said it in recent times; actually I said it last week, but I also say it again today, these are extra-ordinary times.

Of course, the corona virus is not the only pandemic of modern times but it is the first one where we have the internet and social media to communicate with.

I don’t believe in coincidences.

I believe that God is in control and I believe that everything is for a reason, and every reason is for His plan, and by His design.

I also believe that our God is a God of details. He not only cares for the big things in the world but also for the minutia, the little things, but everything is according to His divine plan, and nothing is left to chance.

I believe that this pestilence, that has pervaded our world, is sent by God.

If you are afraid of it, if you are worried or concerned about it, then it is God seeking to get your attention, and He has succeeded.

Why now? Why has God decided to act now?

Well the answer is that God has seen that, yet again, the world has turned away from Him.

Not just a few but many have turned away from Him.

It’s a fact that The Gospel Message of Jesus has been preached to just about every nation and to just about every tribe, and many have accepted it and put their faith in God, and the gospel message of Jesus Christ, and they are saved.

And the current thinking amongst church men and church women is that these are the end times.

I’m not the only one to proclaim this fact. Many others, even lay people, have said Pastor I think we are in the end times.

And you students of scripture and bible scholars out there will know what that means; it means that the second coming of our Lord Jesus Christ is imminent.

Hallelujah, He is coming, and He is coming soon.

Are we ready?

But just as many as have been saved because of The Gospel of Jesus Christ, just as many, if not more have rejected Him, and just as many having accepted Him have then turned away from Him, and there must be a reckoning.

The Book Of Life must be balanced.

There must be judgement.

There must be judgement because, if our bible tells us anything about our God it is that He judges, and that He disciplines, and that He punishes His creation.

He says, “I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on their children to the third and fourth generations of those who hate Me.” Exodus 20:5

We are His creation. Whether we acknowledge Him as Lord or not we have to admit that we are no accident of evolution. We are just too sophisticated. I submit to you that we are a product of a divine will. We are wonderfully made and personally, and I hope you will agree, I attribute my creation to God.

Our text this morning from 2nd Samuel 24 tells just one story, for there are many, of Gods discipline and judgement against a nation. In this case it’s the nation of Israel.

King David had been a simple shepherd boy when God instructed The Prophet Samuel to anoint him as the future king of Israel.

He was still a simple shepherd when he slew Goliath and became a favourite of king Saul.

And God had protected the anointed David for years whilst the jealous king Saul sought to hunt him down and kill him.

And eventually, just as Samuel had predicted, and just as God had planned, David had become king of Israel, and even he, faced with all the anointing and blessings that God had heaped upon him, fails to obey God.

Friends there was far more evidence of God in David’s life than there is in ours and yet David still could not bring himself to trust in God and obey Him.

King David could have avoided this judgement on Israel by simply carrying out God’s command to hold a census of the entire nation, instead David decides to take a shortcut and sends out his army commanders, which includes Joab, to enrol, or call up to count, the fighting men, not the entire population but just the fighting men.

Modern theologians suggest that their numbers would only include men and would exclude all the women, any boy under the age of 15 and any over the age of 50. So the result produced by Joab and the other army commanders, after a period of 9 months and 20 days, is only about 25% of the population of Israel and probably fewer than that.