Series: Untold Stories of the Old Testament #6
Date: CHCC: July 1, 2012
Title: The Census
Text: I Chronicles 21
INTRODUCTION:
Today’s “untold story” is about King David. I Chronicles 21:21 says this: Satan rose up against Israel and incited David to take a census of Israel.
Two things strike me when I read this. One is that Satan gets the blame for coming up with this idea. The scripture tells us a lot of actions Satan takes against God’s people.
• He tempts (1 Corinthians 7:5)
• He accuses (Revelation 12:10)
• He seeks to devour (1 Peter 5:8)
• He tricks (2 Corinthians 11:3)
• He hinders ( I Thessalonians 2:18)
In this case he incited. This means that the idea and the impulse to act came from Satan. He incited David to take a census.
The second thing that strikes me is: What’s wrong with taking a census? After all, we take a census in our country every 10 years. It may be an annoyance, but no one considers it a sin … But when David took his census it was a sin. Why?
The answer can be found in Jeremiah 9:23-24 This is what the Lord says: “Let not the wise boast of their wisdom or the strong boast of their strength or the rich boast of their riches, but let the one who boasts boast about this: that they have the understanding to know me that I am the Lord, who exercises kindness, justice and righteousness on earth, for in these I delight,” declares the Lord. The real question is:
1. Who do you count on?
The sin is not in the census, it’s in the heart attitude. Back when all David had was a slingshot and 5 stones; it was easy to put all his trust in the Lord. But now David was King with an impressive army. Rather than relying on the Lord, he put his confidence in military power.
Israel was surrounded by enemies, and back then it was normal for nations to go to war with each other every spring … as soon as the ground finally dried out from the winter mud. David, no doubt had scores to settle with the pagan nations around him.
His census revealed that he had one million one hundred thousand men old enough to fight in battle. The problem was that He was not taking God into account in this census. Israel was not just any Nation. This was a Nation chosen and formed to be God’s own people.
Remember the account of Gideon in Judges Chapter 7. Gideon started with 32,000 men, and God thinned his troops two times. He finally went to war with only 300 men, and not one of those men lost their lives. God wants His people to put all their trust in Him, not in their own power.
Satan incited David, but God gave him a way out. When David told Joab --- the commander of the troops --- to take a census, Joab saw right away that this census came from David’s sinful pride. Joab’s response was: Why does my lord want to do this? Why should he bring guilt on Israel?” 1 Chronicles 21:3
Satan wants to incite us in the same way. It doesn’t matter what the topic is, just so we put our trust in ANYTHING other than God. Have you noticed that it’s easier to put all your trust in God when your bank account is empty than when it’s full. It’s easier to trust completely in God when you get fired than when you get a promotion. We’re all too prone to trust in our own resources when things are going our way.
So what are we counting? Are you counting your money? Are you counting on your 401K or on so-so security? Are you counting on the wisdom of the US government to keep us prosperous? Are you counting on your job, or your health, or your clever plans, or your education? This “untold story” about David has made me stop and think about it. The only way we have any REAL security is to put ALL our trust in God.
David could have avoided a lot of trouble if he had listened to the advice of his friend, Joab. The same thing is true for us. Never think that every idea you have is a good one. We can have impulses from the Holy Spirit, but sometimes ideas come from the UNholy Spirit!
Friends can often see what we miss. We’d be wise to listen to the counsel of wise Christians … especially when we get “dead set” on a course of action. Don’t make the mistake David made. It was pride that caused David to go with Satan’s idea, and it was pride that kept him from listening to the wise advice of his friend.
When we look at what David did, we see that, even though he counted his soldiers, he failed to COUNT THE COST of sin.
2. Count the cost.
The cost was terrible. David saw the error of his ways eventually, but it was too late to avoid consequences. God spoke to David through a prophet named Gad: So Gad went to David and said to him, “This is what the Lord says: ‘Take your choice: three years of famine, three months of being swept away before your enemies, with their swords overtaking you, or three days of the sword of the Lord — days of plague in the land …” 1 Chronicles 21:11-12
You might wonder, why would God give such deadly consequences for a little thing like taking a census? After all, taking a census … in itself … isn’t a sin. The whole book of NUMBERS is about counting almost everything in Israel. To understand the severity of the consequences, you have to understand the severity of the sin.
God created the Nation of Israel was so that His people could show the world what it was like to trust in the One True God. The whole point was that this Nation would belong entirely to God. But David wanted to see how much strength he had without God. If the Nation of Israel operated independent of God, then God’s plan would come to nothing. The sin of the census was huge. And God gave consequences that showed the enormity of the sin.
After David was given 3 terrible choices, David said to Gad, “I am in deep distress. Let me fall into the hands of the Lord, for his mercy is very great; but do not let me fall into human hands. So the Lord sent a plague on Israel, and seventy thousand men of Israel fell dead.” 1 Chronicles 21:13-14
David was the one who sinned, but the whole nation suffered for it. Of the 1,100,000 soldiers David had counted, 70,000 --- about 6% --- fell dead.
We like to talk about “victim-less crimes.” We’d like to imagine that when we sin, no one else will suffer for it. But that’s not how it works. Divorce hurts innocent children worse than either marriage partner. Addiction destroys the lives of those who depend on the addict. Church feuds do irreparable damage to new Christians. If only we would stop and count the cost before we sin!
David chose the 3rd of his 3 choices --- because he understood the nature of God. He knew that God would temper justice with mercy. In I Chronicles 21:15 we read what God said to the avenging angel. “Enough! Withdraw your hand.” The angel of the Lord was then standing at the threshing floor of Araunah the Jebusite.
ALL would have been destroyed except for God’s mercy. But there is more to this incident in David’s life. Even after the punishing plague, the price for the sin had not been fully paid. This story reinforces a theme of the Old Testament: The sin always requires sacrifice.
3. The Cost of Sin is Sacrifice
God stopped the plague at the threshing floor of Araunah the Jebusite. Then he ordered David to build an altar and make a sin offering at the same location. A man named Araunah owned this property. He offered everything to David as a gift. But David would not take charity in a situation like this.
He rightly said, “I will not sacrifice what costs me nothing.” David paid Araunah 50 shekels of silver for the oxen and wooden yokes for fuel and paid 600 shekels of gold for the threshing floor on which the sacrifice would be made. David knew it was his own sin that required this sacrifice and he did what he could to pay the price himself.
When I was preparing for this sermon, I learned that this location --- the threshing floor of Araunah the Jebusite --- is really significant. The place where God ordered the Angel, “Withdraw your hand” from the plague …
• Was the same place where God had told Abraham to “Withdraw your hand” from sacrificing his son, Isaac --- about 950 years before.
• This was the location where David’s son Solomon would one day build the Temple.
• This was very near the place where --- about 950 years later --- Jesus would be crucified.
David paid 600 shekels of gold for the threshing floor, but today, this property is priceless in Jerusalem.
• Muslims have built the Dome of the Rock over this site
• And the only remaining structure from the Old Temple --- the Wailing Wall --- is located on this same property.
CONCLUSION:
This piece of real estate was the place on our planet where God taught that the cost of sin has to be sacrifice.
The threshing floor of Araunah the Jebusite was the one location where repeated sacrifices were made throughout Biblical history.
Starting with Abraham’s son, to David’s armies, this became the location for thousands of temple sacrifices through the years --- and then the place of the supreme sacrifice of God’s own Son.
It was at the property David purchased for his altar that Jesus paid the final and complete sacrifice for all the sins of the world. On the cross, the high priest sacrificed his own blood, once, and for all time, to save every sinner who has ever lived.
