Life of David – 2 Samuel 24

David, “No Worries, Just Worship”

2 Samuel 24:1-25

Vs. 1-9 Counting on people instead of God

Vs. 10-17 Falling into the hand of the Lord

Vs. 18-25 Trading our sorrows

Intro

At last we have come to the end of 2 Samuel, and except for some final notes next week, the end of David’s life. I suppose if it were me, I would have stopped with the 23rd chapter as David proclaimed the two things that made his reign as king successful, the faithfulness of God and the men that God placed around him. The chapter before us seems to fly in the face of those two truths as David is reduced to insecurity in numbering his army as a source of pride and confidence. So why include this section in his memoirs? I believe it is to show the progression that led up to David’s purchasing of Araunah’s (Ornan’s) threshing floor, where Solomon David’s son would build the temple. According to 1 Chron. 21:26, the offering was consumed by God before he could light the fire, and then in 1 Chron. 22:1, we are told that after this David said, “This is the house of the LORD God, and this is the altar of the burnt offering for Israel.”

Now consider this a moment, won’t you? You see, if you and I were to interview David and ask him what were the biggest regrets in his life, I’m certain that he would mention two:

Adultery with Bathsheba
Numbering of the people

Hey saints, both of these sins point to the temple of God, as Bathsheba gave birth to Solomon, who would build the temple, and the numbering of the people led to the purchase of the land in which it would be erected. My point? Look at what God can do through a broken and contrite heart, as He alone can turn our greatest failures into an altar of worship!

Counting on people instead of God

Vs. 1-2 A careful reading of verse 1 clears up three difficulties with this passage:

Why did God judge the nation for David’s sin of numbering the people? Well, the text reads, “Again the anger of the LORD was aroused against Israel,” so there was something that the nation had been involved with that God was going to discipline, and he simply used David’s sin to do so. Hey saints, God requires more out of His children than He does those who have not come into a relationship with Him. Sometimes it seems as though those who don’t know God get away with more; they can cheat and nothing happens to them, but if we take so much as a paper clip, we get busted, but that is because he has a relationship with us. You see, when my kids were younger and they had friends over, I couldn’t discipline them as I would my own kids, and if they acted up, all I could do was send them home, and that’s the way it is with God.

Why did God move David to sin and then judge the nation for it? In 1 Chron. 21:1, which is the parallel passage to this, we are clearly told that “Satan stood up against Israel and moved David to number Israel.” In the Hebrew there are no capital letters, and apparently the translators added one; had they read the parallel passage of this same event, they would have noticed that it wasn’t God that moved David to number the people but Satan. How could they make such an error? Well folks, there are a lot of things that Satan is behind that God gets blamed for!

So what’s up with this numbering the people thing? There was nothing wrong with taking a national census as long as it was done according to God’s word. In Ex. 30:12 they were told, “When you take the census of the children of Israel for their number, then every man shall give a ransom for himself to the LORD, when you number them, that there may be no plague among them when you number them.” You see the census was used to levy taxes called the half shekel tax, which was for meeting the needs of the temple, but David wasn’t doing so in order to make certain that the worship of the nation would continue but rather to count how big his army was. Joab’s words in verse 3 suggest that David’s numbering was based upon pride to show how successful his reign had been.

Vs. 2-4 The census was completed in as much as it took almost ten months to complete and covered every part of the kingdom. Apparently Joab understood that only God could order a census of the people and addressed David’s insecurity by questioning if this was based upon pride or insecurity. And it seems as though David wanted to number the people in an attempt to gain confidence, as size meant strength.

Hey saints, it never ceases to amaze me at how insecure I am and how I constantly seek my confidence in outward numbers instead of the inward reality of His presence and peace. David is at the end of his reign, where he has just extolled that the reason for his success was the faithfulness of God and the people God had placed around him, and now David thinks, “The people God placed around me, I wonder just how many that is?” We may quote verses like Zech 4:6: “Not by might nor by power, but by My Spirit,’ says the LORD of hosts, but the truth is often “By my power and might and not by the Spirit, says my flesh!”

Oh, had David only reminded himself of his own words, he spoke to Goliath in 1 Sam 17:47, “All this assembly shall know that the LORD does not save with sword and spear; for the battle is the Lord’s, and He will give you into our hands.” Or read his own 65th psalm, where he wrote, “O God of our salvation, You who are the confidence of all the ends of the earth and of the far-off seas.” In Psalm 118:8, we are told that “it is better to trust in the LORD than to put confidence in man.” In Isa. We read, “Thus says the Lord GOD, the Holy One of Israel: In returning and resting you shall be saved; In quietness and confidence shall be your strength.” Finally, in Phil 3:3, Paul said, “Worship God in the Spirit, rejoice in Christ Jesus, and have no confidence in the flesh.”.

Vs. 5-9 The census took nearly 10 months to complete, and David should have called it off long before it was completed, but he didn’t. It seems as though in 1 Chron. 21:5, the number included all men, whereas the number of men recorded in verse 9 was only the “valiant men who drew the sword.” The outcome of the 10-month census is that there were 1.3 million fighting men at David’s disposal.

Hey Christians, David is making the mistake that so many pastors and Christians make, and that is counting people for security and identity instead of counting on God. Strength is not in numbers; it is in God! In Gen 22:17, God told Abraham that “blessing I will bless you, and multiplying I will multiply your descendants as the stars of heaven and as the sand which is on the seashore; and your descendants shall possess the gate of their enemies.” In Acts, we are told that it is the Lord who adds to His church daily as He sees fit. God’s into keeping His promises, and Satan is into causing security or insecurity based upon statistics; if the number was too low, then David wouldn’t think they had a chance, and if it was too high, he would get a big head.

Falling into the hand of the Lord

Vs. 10-13 Over six times in scripture we see David confessing his sin before the Lord, and this time his sin he considered greater because it affected much more than four lives. God had given David 9 months to get his heart right, and his pride had kept from seeing it for what it was, but when he finally heard the number, he realized that he was looking for numbers to satisfy his need for security instead of realizing that his security was in the strength of the Lord and not in the numbers. He was in such a hurry to get the number, and as soon as it was counted, he’s bummed out. It reminds me of Saul when the song of the land was “Saul had killed his thousands and David his ten thousands.” I’m certain Saul would have loved the song as long as it hadn’t mentioned that David had a bigger number than he did. But David confesses it all—the act as well as the motive behind it. What we learn from this is threefold:

A man after God’s heart, a man to whom God in His grace chooses to us, is by no means sinless. There will always be a discrepancy between how the Lord can, by His greatness, use an instrument and the flaws and imperfections of the instrument itself!
How vulnerable we are to failure, as David had just proclaimed God’s faithfulness, and the next minute he is acting in total distrust of what he had just sung about.
Finally, this teaches us that maturity in Christ is not necessarily measured by lack of failure but rather upon the quickness it takes to get right with God after failure (verse 10).

I can only wonder how many times daily my insecurity has led me to trust in numbers instead of the Lord! Twice in the 23rd chapter we were told that David’s mighty men killed 300 all by himself, so why worry about your strength when all God had done had been wrought by His own hand? Because our flesh is always looking to claim some value based upon its goodness. What is of greatest value is not what we can count but who we can count on!

In Deut. 28 these same three disciplines are named as consequences for Israel’s rebellion if they break the covenant with God, so these shouldn’t have been a surprise. And in verse 13, Gad is directed by the Lord to offer David these three choices to test David whether or not he would again turn to human wisdom or trust God: All three would signal the loss of life but would affect different groups.

Seven years of famine: This would affect those who were financially disadvantaged as they would have less to rely on, and it would make the nation more dependent upon foreign nations for their food supply.
Flee three months before your enemies: This would mainly affect the soldiers, and it would make the nation more susceptible to invading foreign armies.
Three days’ plague in your land: Again, this would cause the death of many in Israel, but it would be indiscriminate, striking anonymously, and as such, put a risk on David and his family equally.

The use of the phrase (verse 14) “Please let us fall into the hand of the Lord, for His mercies are great” is an indication that David was choosing the third as he exposed himself and his family to God’s discipline. Had he chosen famine, his wealth would have protected him; had he chosen battle, there was already an ordinance (21:17) for David not to go out to battle, but he made himself of no reputation and made himself equal with his subjects.

Vs. 14-17 Now God gave David a chance to choose one of three disciplines, two of which would give no opportunity to affect him or his family, and the other placed him on the same field as everyone else. Why the choice by God? Well, it related to David’s insecurity, which was making sure that he was safe by crunching the numbers, so here God places him into an insecure position to see if he would again seek security outside of trusting God. Notice as well that the next morning God sent Gad to David, and David is going to have to go through him as an intermediary. It seems as though this is also meant to teach David, who had tried to circumvent trusting in God, so God says you don’t want to trust me with your security, then I’ll have you see what it’s like to have to go through a man to get to me.

The outcome was that in 6 hours 70,000 people died; many of those were no doubt the soldiers that David sought security in, and in one moment he realized that one angel of the Lord is more powerful than the 70,000 valiant men that he counted on being his strength. God forgives our sin, but He doesn’t pamper us or wink at our indiscretions. Instead, He teaches us that though He forgives us, there are always repercussions for our actions and consequences for our choices that even He won’t change the course of our disobedience. That is the reason for his discipline, so that we will see for ourselves that rebellion against Him and His word only destroys us.

Hey folks, we are a lot like David, aren’t we? We tend to crunch the numbers and do our spreadsheet to determine if we are secure in life. Why do we check our bank accounts and count our calories and cholesterol in a futile attempt to find security in this world? Hear the words of Jesus in John 16:32–33: “The hour is coming, yes, has now come, that you will be scattered, each to his own.”. “These things I have spoken to you, that in Me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation; but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world.” I left out why Jesus said we can have peace apart from counting the numbers as He proclaimed, “I am not alone, because the Father is with me.” In the failure passage of Isa 53, we are told, “The chastisement for our peace was upon Him.”

Did you get that? Jesus endured no peace, so that we might “know His peace,” so why do we seek it in other places? That is why Paul proclaims in Eph. 2:14 “He Himself is our peace.” David wanted stats; he wanted to see if the numbers were on his side, and the only number God gave David was 70,000 dead from the plague, and it broke David’s heart. The number one killer in the world is, WORRY! Our fretting and worry kills us, but make no mistake about it, but our neurosis kills countless others as well. Jesus said, “Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life?” and “do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul.”

Trading our sorrows

Vs. 18-25 In Chronicles, his name is “Ornan,” and it means “active,” and here it means “Ark,” but it’s the same guy. And this fellow was willing to give every part of his threshing business to David for the sacrifice. A right heart, that’s a heart of sacrifice, and it spoke to David about his need to sacrifice everything to worship as well. According to Gen. 22:14, this is where Abraham offered his only begotten son and where God offered His only begotten son. Threshing floors were usually in high, flat places so they could catch every breeze, based upon the Hebrew David paid fifty shekels of silver for the threshing floor and oxen, and in 1 Chron. he then paid five hundred shekels of gold for the field that went with it, and this was where the temple would be built.

It is an interesting fact that if you look at the sight today, you see the Dome of the Rock Mosque. Tradition says that it was built on top where the temple was, but it can’t be so geographically as underneath it is not flat enough for a threshing floor where a team of oxen would pull stones to separate the wheat from the chaff. Now if you go three hundred and twenty-two feet north of the dome of the rock mosque, on the western side, there is a little dome there, called the dome of the tablets or the dome of the spirits, where it is flat enough for a threshing floor, which would place the dome of the rock mosque right where Ezekiel and Revelation would place it in the court of the gentiles. Interesting to me that God would instruct a temple from a place where chaff was separated from wheat, as worship is always produced when the Lord separates our hearts from our old fleshly nature!

Now Araunah had a good and generous heart by wanting to give David whatever he asked for, but had Araunah’s offer been accepted, it would have been his and not David’s sacrifice. David didn’t want to look for the easy way out; instead, he knew it would not be a gift or a sacrifice if it didn’t cost him something. Hey saints, if our worship or service that we offer the Lord costs us nothing, it will be worth exactly what we paid for it—nothing! In Jesus’ parable of the pearl of great price (Matt. 13:46), we are told that He “went and sold all that he had and bought it,” so clearly Jesus sees you and me as more valuable than “all.” You will recall the words of martyred missionary Jim Elliot, who said, “He is no fool who gives up what he cannot keep to gain what he can never lose!” The purchase of the threshing floor to erect an altar for a sacrifice suggests that the death of 70,000 didn’t atone for sin, and only the sacrifice of an innocent one can do that. David made two types of offerings upon the altar based upon verse 25: burnt offerings for sin as well as peace or fellowship offerings, so we see that a time of cleansing is always tied to a time of renewed fellowship.

Now God had given David the antidote to the plague: worship in sacrifice. He even told him where he wanted it done (the threshing floor of Araunah “Ark”). And Araunah says, “Wow, you have come at a good time. I’ve got the place, the oxen, tools to cook with, and even the fuel for the fire, all for free.” Now I don’t know about you, but I would have seen this as a God thing, as it didn’t cost me a thing and I still get to worship. But David said, “No way, man, how can I not give everything to God who gave His everything for me?” I’ve got a confession; I’ve become accustomed to giving God my “leftovers.”.

He can have my leftover time, which is after work, after relaxation and hobbies after my family, minus the time I need for me. He can have what’s left. Then He can have my leftover talent that is available after I’ve given my very best to my career, hobbies, and honeydos. Oh, and He can have my leftover treasure, minus taxes of course, as long as I can afford it. But David said, “No way, I’m going to pay full price for the one that paid full price.” Folks, this just convicts me so personally as I realize that I’m not near as much a worshiper of God as I’d like to be because if Araunah had offered me that deal, I’m afraid I would have taken it!

I think sometimes we tend to think that what makes a person great is “their individual stats.” We are obsessed with the numbers, aren’t we? We are so concerned with a standard that will give us an accurate measure of how well we are doing. Consider the stats comparing the spiritual batting average of Saul when compared against David, and I rather think that if we compared the numbers in most categories, Saul would have come out on top, yet it is David who God declared was a man after. That is what the Lord had told Samuel way back when we first started this study in 1 Sam 16:7: “The Lord does not see as man sees; for man looks at the outward appearance, but the LORD looks at the heart.”