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.
Is that what God commanded king David to do? No, it is not.
In fact we see in verse 4 that Joab, the army commander, tries to dissuade king David from such a mistake, he says “May the Lord your God multiply the troops a hundred times over, and may the eyes of my lord the king see it. But why does my lord the king want to do such a thing?”
But he is over ruled by king David, who should have known better.
Remember that God always has a reason and always has a plan for everyone and for everything that He does.
It’s clear in this particular case that Gods plan for Israel is to punish the whole nation and to do that He wants king David to hold the census but David fails to do that.
There is no explanation in the scripture why our God, who is all seeing and all knowing, would need a census of the nation of Israel and also no explanation given as to why Gods anointed king of Israel, who God had blessed, chooses to wilfully deny Him.
But he does and because God will always have His way He goes right on ahead and punishes the nation anyway.
In this case, through the prophet Gad, he gives king David a choice, verses 13 and 14 say; ‘So Gad went to David and said to him, “Shall there come on you three years of famine in your land? Or three months of fleeing from your enemies while they pursue you? Or three days of plague in your land? Now then, think it over and decide how I should answer the one who sent me.” David said to Gad, “I am in deep distress. Let us fall into the hands of the Lord, for his mercy is great; but do not let me fall into human hands.”’
You notice that one of the three chose’s offered by the prophet is not to repent of his sin.
For David there was no way out, no way to avoid the judgments of God.
He will have justice. Sin against Him must be balanced by His judgement.
Our scripture reports that in three days 70,000 of the people died as a result of the plague bought upon the nation by God’s judgement.
Does this sound familiar? Can you see the connection to the present day?
In verse 17 we read that, ‘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.”’
At the exact place and at the exact time that The Lord decreed the plague would end David pleads with God to punish him and not the nation.
David finally gets the point! And he repents.
Verse 18 says; On that day Gad went to David and said to him, “Go up and build an altar to the Lord on the threshing floor of Ar-au-nah the Jebusite.”
In the old testament times repentance involved sacrifice and in David’s case it meant not only buying the place but also the fuel for the altar fire and the oxen to sacrifice.
Blood and fire, blood and fire and plague and pestilence.
These are the means by which our God gets our attention and also the means by which he wreaks His wrath upon us.
Ar-raun-ah would have given his threshing floor to the king for free but David has got the message, finally!
It is David who is responsible for the plague upon his nation and his people.
He alone is responsible for offending and even defying God. He knew better, and yet he still went ahead and did it and his people paid for his sin in great numbers.
His offence must cost him, and so he pays a vast amount of money to Ar-raun-ah, 50 shekels, nearly 12 lbs of gold.
David returned to God, he repented of his sin and in response God caused the plague to end.
In modern times, even though we too have offended God, we do not have to build an alter or sacrifice a burnt offering or pay a great price, because today we have Jesus.
Jesus is our sacrifice to God for our sins. All we need to do is admit that fact, confess Jesus as Lord, and turn back to God.
Like king David we need to Repent of our sins and turn back to God, and we can do that by accepting Jesus as our Lord and saviour, but notice, if you can that God punished David, the leader of the nation for his sins, by punishing the nation.
Sound familiar?
I’m sure it does.
It’s time that we as a nation returned to God because time is short and Jesus will be here soon.
Before I leave you this morning I have one more piece of scripture and that is the answer to that passage from Exodus 20:5 that I gave you at the beginning and that is verse six which says, “but showing love to a thousand generations of those who love me and keep my commandments.”
I pray that we will be counted amongst those who love God.
In Jesus name. Amen.
