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We have seen something of the true horror of sin in our last study. Yet sadly we have not yet discovered the worst of the destruction that sin brings. This final section draws out contrasts between Saul and David, and between the young David when he was being pursued by Saul, and the old man David. First we read about something that happened during the reign of Saul, and it surely comes as no surprise that Saul had so lost sight of God that he did not have a clue about God’s will.

^{2SA 21:1} Now there was a famine in the days of David for three years, year after year; and David sought the presence of the LORD. And the LORD said, "It is for Saul and his bloody house, because he put the Gibeonites to death." ² So the king called the Gibeonites and spoke to them (now the Gibeonites were not of the sons of Israel but of the remnant of the Amorites, and the sons of Israel made a covenant with them, but Saul had sought to kill them in his zeal for the sons of Israel and Judah).

After rejecting God’s specific instructions about destroying the Amalekites (1 Samuel 15) it is ironic that Saul sought with a passion to put the Gibeonites to death. He did this, ‘in his zeal for Israel/Judah’ because the Gibeonites were a different race from the Israelites. The Gibeonites were the Canaanites who because of their earlier passion for God were given the custody of the Ark in 1 Samuel 6/7 when it proved too hot for the Levites to handle. Saul did not object to the Amalekites, who were opposed to God, but he reacted against the Gibeonites, who loved God. Saul would have claimed that he had a zeal for God, but the book is clear that it was only a passion for Israel/Judah. In response God sent a famine. The short story makes dramatic reading but the reader will not really be surprised. We have learned enough about Saul to expect no better. It is worth noting however before we pass on that the text does not tell us about any deaths occasioned by the famine.

The book continues through some contrasts of the early David with David towards the end of his life, including setting a psalm of praise to God from the early life of David (in chapter 22) against a composition called ‘the last words of David’ (in 23:1-7) that seems more about praising David than truly praising God. With this background we come to the final chapter in 2 Samuel in the knowledge that sin destroys the wisdom of man, and it dulls the vision of Christians. Yet even with this preparation chapter 24 is shocking.

^{2SA 24:1} Now again the anger of the LORD burned against Israel, and it incited David against them to say, "Go, number Israel and Judah." ² And the king said to Joab the commander of the army who was with him, "Go about now through all the tribes of Israel, from Dan to Beersheba, and register the people, that I may know the number of the people." ³ But Joab said to the king, "Now 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; but why does my lord the king delight in this thing?" ⁴ Nevertheless, the king's word prevailed against Joab and against the commanders of the army. So Joab and the commanders of the army went out from the presence of the king, to register the people of Israel. … ⁹ And Joab gave the number of the registration of the people to the king;

We need first to observe something in the style of the writing. In chapter 12, when Nathan rebuked David for his sin he said

^{2SA 12:14} ‘… by this deed you have given occasion to the enemies of the LORD to blaspheme …’.

What Nathan really meant was – You have, by your behaviour, blasphemed the Lord. The circumlocution was to avoid specifically implying damage to the name of the Lord. There is a similar element of circumlocution in verse 1 here. What the writer of the book is saying is that David was incited by the Lord to number Israel. Or at least that was how David saw it.

This story is also told in the books of Chronicles, and here the chronicler tells us

^{1CH 21:1} Then Satan stood up against Israel and moved David to number Israel.

The difference between the two accounts could not be more dramatic. One account tells us that the Lord was responsible, while the other version claims that it was Satan who was behind it.

If we had just picked up these two accounts in isolation we would probably despair. But we have come to 2 Samuel 24 through a disturbing exposition of the damage that sin causes to man’s capacity to know good and evil, and we have witnessed David’s increasing inability to tell truth from lies and to recognize injustice and evil. Now we discover that David’s wisdom has been so far corrupted by sin that he cannot even tell the difference between God and Satan.

This is the end, the final terminus for man under the malign influence of sin. The search for wisdom that let sin in (as we saw from Genesis 3 in our last study) finally ripens the harvest of confusion and utter folly. Thus Isaiah can climax his picture of the depravity of sin as

^{ISA 5:20} Woe to those who call evil good, and good evil; Who substitute darkness for light and light for darkness; Who substitute bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter! ²¹ Woe to those who are wise in their own eyes, And clever in their own sight!

Man’s search for the right to decide for himself what is good, finally results in each man making himself his own god.

^{2SA 24:10} Now David's heart troubled him after he had numbered the people. So David said to the LORD, "I have sinned greatly in what I have done. But now, O LORD, please take away the iniquity of Thy servant, for I have acted very foolishly." ¹¹ When David arose in the morning, the word of the LORD came to the prophet Gad, David's seer, saying, ¹² "Go and speak to David, `Thus the LORD says, "I am offering you three things; choose for yourself one of them, which I may do to you."'" ¹³ So Gad came to David and told him, and said to him, "Shall seven years 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 see what answer I shall return to Him who sent me." ¹⁴ Then David said to Gad, "I am in great distress. Let us now fall into the hand of the LORD for His mercies are great, but do not let me fall into the hand of man."

^{2SA 24:15} So the LORD sent a pestilence upon Israel from the morning until the appointed time; and seventy thousand men of the people from Dan to Beersheba died.

It did not surprise us that Saul could not learn or follow the will of God, but how awful a picture we now have, that David cannot tell God from Satan. In consequence over seventy thousand died. And it all started with allowing anger a foothold. It may seem that we have a very poor picture of David in 2 Samuel. But please don’t miss the importance in the message that these things happened to David. From the rest of the Bible we realize that this is not the whole of the story of David, and we have a much more uplifting picture of David and of his relationship with God from other accounts and from the book of Psalms.

But the writer of Samuel has given us this account of sin illustrated through the life of David to ensure that we pay full attention. If it had been Saul who came to this end we may be tempted to react by concluding that the end for sinners is tragic, but (like the Pharisee in the temple in Luke 18:10-14) thanking God that we are not like that.

We might feel superior to Saul, and fool ourselves into believing that we could not slip that way. But we can afford no such complacency about the man whose appreciation of God composed Psalms 22 and 23 (amongst many others) and who is held in the highest esteem by every later Biblical writer who mentions him. If sin can so damage David, we need to stay alert. Sin can overwhelm us and savage those around us just as readily as it did David. And just as with David, giving place to anger invites disaster.

It is always easy for us to justify our anger; it’s always the other person who is in the wrong. But until God dismisses the root of sin from us when He brings His Kingdom with glory, we will find that some who disagree with us, or seem to offend us, actually have the temerity and folly to really believe, with all sincerity that they can muster, that they are in the right.

Repentance

But the book does not end on such a gloomy note. David, to his credit, became aware that he was in the wrong, and he went to the Lord. This opens the path to a wonderful climax.

Before we can appreciate it however we need to take note of a major theme in these books. The story began with Israel in a mess because it had no king, and it appears to be finishing in a mess even with a king. However certain important developments have taken place, including three strange references to a ‘house’.

In 1 Samuel 2 God promised an enduring house for the Faithful Priest whom God would raise up. Then in 2 Samuel 5 David captured the citadel of Zion, described as ‘the city of David’, and in 2 Samuel 7 David sought to build a house for God only to be told that a son to be born to him would build it. More dramatically God told David that He would build a house for him.

God’s salvation, and his dealings with the nation, and with mankind, have not finished. The repetition of the theme of house indicates that the next stage in God’s salvation is God dwelling with His people. David had simply wanted to build an earthly temple as a permanent structure to replace the mobile tabernacle. However we can see from the Psalms that the concept of God dwelling with His people in the temple in Zion/Jerusalem very quickly developed into a bigger appreciation of God installing His King (Psalm 2:6) in a Zion that is at one level the insignificant fortress of Jerusalem (Psalm 46) and yet is much more than the earthly Jerusalem (Psalm 48:2).

The essential feature of Zion is that it is God dwelling in the midst of His people, in full harmony with Him. It can be summed up in the final words of Ezekiel’s prophecy –

^{EZE 48:35} " … and the name of the city from that day shall be, `The LORD is there.'"

Now Israel has a king, given to it by God. Yet things are still a mess. They are not going to get better until the nation has God dwelling in its midst. That will surely solve all its problems. But we have seen that God cannot dwell with sin, and the folly of the wise woman of Tekoa was that reconciliation is possible without dealing with sin. God cannot come and dwell with man until sin is dealt with.

Now let us consider the puzzling story of David’s census. Why did this action produce such judgement from God; what was so wrong in taking a census? If we observe that there are only two whole numberings of the people recorded in the Bible, we should realize that they were significant events. They both occur in the book of Numbers, one at the beginning of the book and the other at the end. Their timing gives the clue as to their purpose. The first numbering (Numbers 1) came as the children of Israel journeyed from Sinai to Kadesh-Barnea to enter the land of Canaan. It was a registration prior to the next step in the development of salvation. But through sin the nation was condemned to wander the wilderness for forty years until every one of those numbered (apart from Caleb and Joshua) was dead.

Thus a second census or numbering was required, and we learn more of the purpose in numbering the people from the account of that census.

^{NU 26:51} These are those who were numbered of the sons of Israel, 601,730.

^{NU 26:52} Then the LORD spoke to Moses, saying, 53 "Among these the land shall be divided for an inheritance according to the number of names. 54 "To the larger group you shall increase their inheritance, and to the smaller group you shall diminish their inheritance; each shall be given their inheritance according to those who were numbered of them.

The census was not so much a head count as a registration for the apportionment of the inheritance.

Thus each census was intended as a preliminary step to a significant development in God’s salvation. Following the first census it became clear that the people had no faith in God, and God could not bring them into the land, and so all those enrolled in the registration died, many from plague. We have discovered that the next step in God’s salvation is God and man dwelling together. So we can grasp how serious it was when under the influence of Satan, David took action which heaven saw as an attempt to set the next stage of salvation in motion.

Consider; David, after being told that he cannot bring God and man to dwell together, nevertheless registers the people for just that very development. Whether David saw his action clearly in this light is not important. The book is showing us how the deed was viewed from heaven’s perspective. It read as an attempt to force God’s hand and bring about the dwelling of God and man together. But the problem was that nothing had been done to remove the sin that ruins man and makes him completely incompatible with God. When sinful man seeks to inject himself into the presence of a Holy God, it is not surprising that the result is plague.

It is at this point that we see the real difference between David and Saul, and the best part of the story arrives.

^{2SA 24:16} When the angel stretched out his hand toward Jerusalem to destroy it, the LORD relented from the calamity, and said to the angel who destroyed the people, "It is enough! Now relax 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 down the people, and said, "Behold, it is I who have sinned, and it is I who have done wrong; but these sheep, what have they done? Please let Thy hand be against me and against my father's house."

¹⁸ So Gad came to David that day and said to him, "Go up, erect an altar to the LORD on the threshing floor of Araunah the Jebusite." ¹⁹ And David went up according to the word of Gad, just as the LORD had commanded. ²⁰ And Araunah looked down and saw the king and his servants crossing over toward him; and Araunah went out and bowed his face to the ground before the king. ²¹ Then Araunah said, "Why has my lord the king come to his servant?" And David said, "To buy the threshing floor from you, in order to build an altar to the LORD, that the plague may be held back from the people." … ²⁴ … 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. Thus the LORD was moved by entreaty for the land, and the plague was held back from Israel.

David did eventually come to his senses, and the language of this repentance - "Behold, it is I who have sinned, and it is I who have done wrong; but these sheep, what have they done? Please let Thy hand be against me and against my father's house." is a clear acknowledgement of personal guilt, and an appreciation of the horror of sin, his sin. And what is God’s response?

God’s answer to sin

The building of a temple in Jerusalem was only the erection of a structure of wood and stone, but as we have observed, the Psalms and later prophets see a greater development, a Zion in which God and man will indeed dwell together in harmony. But this Zion cannot come while man is ruled and ruined by sin. There needs to be something first that will take away the sin. To ensure that we understand this clearly God applied the same rule to the building of the temple in Jerusalem in David’s time. As the temple represented the greater promise of God dwelling with man, the temple could not be built until it was seen that sin had been dealt with. To deal with sin; to remove it, required judgement.

When David truly repented God gave him a task that was even more significant than the one he had sought. God give him the awesome privilege of erecting the altar on what came to be the site of the temple. 2 Chronicles 3 confirms the site of Araunah’s threshing floor as – Mount Moriah. Generations earlier Abraham was to declare at the foot of Moriah – as he set out believing that he would have to offer up his son Isaac, ‘God will provide for Himself the Lamb’.

Now David would show for us what it is all about. Before the temple could be built there had first to be an altar. Before the real Zion could arrive there had to be the cross of Jesus at Calvary to remove sin by the judgement of God. Just as the Genesis picture showed the father (Abraham) preparing to offer up his son (Isaac) this altar on Mount Moriah confirms that the Lamb that God will provide is His Son, (who will also be King, descended through the house that God promised to David) and He will make Himself a sacrifice to take away in the judgement of God the sin that prevents God and man coming together in Zion.

I rather think that when David eventually came (in life or after death) to understand the job that God had given to him, he was well content. To reveal the mystery and majesty of Calvary is a true privilege.

At Calvary God dealt with sin forever. Note that in 2 Samuel 12:13 and here in 24:10 the book talks, not of God forgiving sin, but of God taking it away. That is what Calvary is about. There Jesus by bearing all of our guilt and the consequences of our sin has dealt with all of my sin. He has borne it away, and now it exists no more. Psalm 103 (also attributed to David) records;

^{PS 103:10} He has not dealt with us according to our sins, Nor rewarded us according to our iniquities. ¹¹ For as high as the heavens are above the earth, So great is His lovingkindness toward those who fear Him. ¹² As far as the east is from the west, So far has He removed our transgressions from us.

David built the altar on the threshing floor of Araunah. And if we jump on into the first book of kings we discover that the next stage of salvation – the building of the temple did come to pass. However 1 Kings 8 shows that Solomon appreciated that the temple was not the real dwelling of God with man that the Psalms proclaim. He declared – 1KI 8:27 "But will God indeed dwell on the earth? Behold, heaven and the highest heaven cannot contain Thee, how much less this house which I have built!

Centuries later, today, neither the threshing-floor of Araunah, nor Solomon’s temple remain. But Calvary has happened. So what of the hope of God dwelling with us today and when will be the census, or registration of those who will be a part of the Zion we have yet to see?

Where is God’s dwelling today?

In the world, the cry from many a broken heart is - if there is a God, where is He?

^{JN 1:35} Again the next day John was standing with two of his disciples, ³⁶ and he looked upon Jesus as He walked, and said, "Behold, the Lamb of God!" ³⁷ And the two disciples heard him speak, and they followed Jesus. ³⁸ And Jesus turned, and beheld them following, and said to them, "What do you seek?" And they said to Him, "Rabbi (which translated means Teacher), where are You staying?" ³⁹ He said to them, "Come, and you will see." They came therefore and saw where He was staying; and they stayed with Him that day, for it was about the tenth hour. ⁴⁰ One of the two who heard John speak, and followed Him, was Andrew, Simon Peter's brother. ⁴¹ He found first his own brother Simon, and said to him, "We have found the Messiah" (which translated means Christ). ⁴² He brought him to Jesus. Jesus looked at him, and said, "You are Simon the son of John; you shall be called Cephas" (which is translated Peter).

This is a very skillful narrative. As well as the surface story John has given us a significant sequence of words from the Lord Jesus. Andrew asks Him - where do you live. The Lord Jesus says - ‘Come and see’ - and the next words which He says are ‘You are Simon, you shall be called Cephas/Peter.’ The point of the change of name was that the Aramaic name Cephas (Greek version Petros (Peter)) has a meaning of stone or rock. This is often interpreted as referring to the character of Simon, or to a significant foundation role for him. However in the context in which Jesus gave the name to him the meaning (which Peter himself validates) is quite different. Cephas/Peter as stone is also the material from which buildings are made, like a brick. Thus we can understand what Jesus was telling these early disciples when they asked ‘Where do you live?’ He said ‘Come and see – you are Cephas, I am going to live - in you’.

That this is the sense of it is confirmed by 1 Peter 2

^{1PE 2:4} And coming to Him as to a living stone, rejected by men, but choice and precious in the sight of God, ⁵ you also, as living stones, are being built up as a spiritual house for a holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.

Jesus lives/dwells with and in His people, each one a living brick in the house that God is building, a living stone of Zion. Thus when those in desperation cry to Him - ‘where are you’ He wants to turn to them and say ‘Come - do you see …., I live in her, I live in him’. The question then for me today is can the world see the Lord in me?

How can we register for a claim in this inheritance?

There is a beautiful reflection of the census for Zion in another New Testament gospel.

^{LK 10:17} The seventy-two returned with joy and said, "Lord, even the demons submit to us in your name."

^{LK 10:18} He replied, "I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven. ¹⁹ I have given you authority to trample on snakes and scorpions and to overcome all the power of the enemy; nothing will harm you. ²⁰ However, do not rejoice that the spirits submit to you, but rejoice that your names are written in heaven."

The missionaries that Jesus had earlier sent out return full of excitement. However Jesus tells them two things.

1. He ‘saw Satan fall like lightening from heaven’, and
2. Don’t rejoice over your power over demons but ‘rather that your names are written in heaven’.

These two statements are connected and are the point of this passage. To understand it we need to ask what Satan was doing in heaven. In chapter 4 we discover that Satan’s domain is not heaven but on earth, in the kingdom of mankind. It is important to note this because it makes clear that his expulsion from heaven on this occasion is not the loss of the role that he has in the kingdom of the world. So we still need to discover what he was doing in heaven. In Revelation 12:9-12 we read of a final expulsion of the devil from God’s presence;

^{Rev 12:9}’ The great dragon was hurled down--that ancient serpent called the devil, or Satan, who leads the whole world astray. He was hurled to the earth, and his angels with him. ¹⁰ Then I heard a loud voice in heaven say: "Now have come the salvation and the power and the kingdom of our God, and the authority of his Christ. For the accuser of our brothers, who accuses them before our God day and night, has been hurled down.’

That event is still future and it is not what Jesus was referring to. However it does give us a clue to what the Lord Jesus meant. Satan is referred to in Revelation as ‘the accuser’ and indeed it is the same role which he has in the Book of Job. It would seem that Satan has legitimate access into God’s presence in order to accuse sinners, and thus he is not short of opportunity to come before God with legitimate complaints.

This picture of Satan ‘falling from heaven like lightening’ however is of the accuser being ‘sent packing with a flea in his ear’ when he went with complaints against the emissaries of Jesus. It is not important what the complaint or accusation was. The sacrifice of Jesus deals with all sin. Now God can respond to Satan’s reports about my conduct with the rebuff – ‘what sin are you complaining of, I see no sin. Jesus has taken it away’. And thus Jesus can emphasise to the disciples the contrast between ‘the accuser being thrown out on his ear’ and ‘your names are written in heaven’.

The Satan may (for a time) have a role in bringing to God’s notice the sins and failures of mankind, but his tenure in Heaven is limited in time and nature. For those who obtain salvation however, the significance is that ‘their names are written in heaven’. The idea is the writing up of a list of members or citizens, or taking the census. Indeed Psalm 87 tells us of God being excited when He records someone as being ‘born in Zion’.

These books of Samuel have given us great pictures of our King and High Priest. They have also shown us how to live by faith, and they have demonstrated the full horror of sin. But they finish with the beautiful picture that God has provided the altar of Calvary first, to take away our sin, and eliminate it, so that even as we walk on earth we can know now the living fellowship of God, in a relationship of peace, knowing that we are registered in heaven’s census and nothing can remove our right to the final stage of God’s salvation..

Crossroads 10.08.03 - DAB