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Man, 1 Chronicles chapter 21, the Bible reads in verse 1, and Satan stood up against Israel and provoked David to number Israel. Now keep your finger here and go to 2 Samuel 24, we're going to go back and forth between these two a little bit tonight because this is the parallel passage. And I'm not going to spend a lot of time on the first verse because I already went into this last Wednesday night when I preached about chapter 20, I spent a long time explaining this first verse, so I'm only going to spend a little while explaining it right now and then get into the rest of the chapter. But of course, we see that in 2 Samuel chapter 24 verse 1, the Bible says, and again, the anger of the Lord was kindled against Israel and he moved David against them to say, go number Israel and Judah, whereas over in 1 Chronicles 21, it says, and Satan stood up against Israel and provoked David to number Israel. And I went into a big long thing last week where I explained how it was the devil who did it, but it was basically God who gave the devil permission to do it and that God will often use the devil to do things like this because God can either restrain the devil or he can allow him to destroy and harm and kill and tempt and whatever. And he's kind of on a leash in that sense and we talked about how in the book of Job, the devil comes before the Lord and the Lord ends up allowing him to attack Job or in 1 Corinthians chapter 5 where the one is delivered unto Satan for the destruction of the flesh. And I'm not going to re-preach last week's sermon, but it's basically the devil doing it on God's behalf, okay, because the devil just wants to destroy and harm and hurt anybody all the time anyway. So anytime God is angry with someone or displeased with someone, he could just basically just unleash the devil to do his thing or just remove the hedge of protection that he normally has around that person. But I don't want to go into that because we already talked about that a lot last week, but I want to point out the fact, beginning in verse 1 there in chapter 24 of 2 Samuel, it says again, the anger of the Lord was kindled against Israel. So what is it that starts all of this or sets this all in motion? All these bad things happen because God is mad at Israel, right? So Israel is in sin, they're away from the Lord, they're in a bad place spiritually, and so because of their wickedness, God moved David against them to say, go number Israel and Judah. Over in 1 Chronicles chapter 21 verse 1 we see that it's actually the devil specifically who is the one who literally goes and gets David to do this. It says that Satan stood up against Israel and provoked David to number Israel. Now what we can learn from this right away is that when a nation is wicked before God or when a nation makes God angry, he can give them a bad leader or he can even allow a good leader like David who is in general a godly man to make bad decisions that harm them. So people today are really worried about politics and some people's whole life revolves around politics and they listen to a lot of talk radio or they watch the news a lot or read the newspaper a lot and man they're just counting down to the elections. I even hear people talking about this many hundreds of days till this election and they're just biting their fingernails that their guy is going to get in or that we can keep the majority over here or whatever. But at the end of the day, if God is pleased, we're going to be blessed. And if God is displeased, we're going to be cursed as a nation and it really isn't as important who is in the White House or who is in the Congress or the Senate. What matters is whether God is pleased with us. If God is pleased with us, he can give us good leaders or he can cause the leaders that we have to do good things. Even a guy that we would look at as a bad leader, a bad senator, bad president, sometimes he'll still do stuff that we like. He'll sometimes do good things and we rejoice when that happens. And then even sometimes when our guy gets in or a so-called good guy gets in, if there is such a thing in the political realm, then a lot of times he can end up doing stuff to harm us or bad decisions are made. So the bottom line is we need to focus more on that which is spiritual than on that which is temporal, that which is carnal, that which is political. The real battle is not a battle with flesh and blood. It's not a battle at the ballot box. The real battle is for souls. The real battle is with the rulers of the darkness of this world, spiritual wickedness in high places. Let me tell you something. There is a battle raging. I get up and I preach on Sunday morning, Sunday night and Wednesday night and my fellow pastors and brethren across America, they do the same thing. They get up and preach hard against sin and try to motivate people to go soul winning and try to teach people the Bible so that people know doctrine so that they're not easily deceived or carried about with every wind of doctrine and cunning craftiness whereby they lie in wait to deceive. And when we do this, we don't just do it and everything is peaceful and everything is fine. No, actually there is constant opposition to what our church is doing. You know, Faithful Word Baptist Church and the preaching that comes forth from this pulpit and the soul winning that goes on and the churches that are being planted and other people that we're influencing across America and across the world are constantly facing opposition. The enemy isn't just going to take it lying down as we preach the truth and preach hard against sin and expose the evils of this world and preach hard against the Sodomites and win people to Christ and expose the fake nation of Israel and everything else. You know, the devil and his minions are not just going to take that lying down. So there's a constant battle, a constant struggle, a constant fight going on where the devil is trying to attack our church any way that he possibly can. Anything we try to do is always an uphill battle, it's a struggle, there's a fight, and that's just the way life is. That's just the way it is serving the Lord. It's nothing to be down or depressed about because, you know, we enjoy the struggle. We enjoy the challenge. We enjoy the fight. We're in the Lord's army. This is what we were born to do. This is what we were called to do, amen? But the reason I bring that up is to say, you know what? You need to be in that fight. You need to be involved. You know, Jesus said, if you don't gather with me, then you're scattering abroad. So you can't be neutral in this conflict. Either you're helping get people saved, either you're helping the church succeed, either you're helping the mission of Christ and the church and soul winning and preaching against sin and planting churches and reaching the world through missions and so forth. Either you're part of the solution or you're part of the problem. You can't be neutral. You either gather with Christ or you scatter. Doing nothing means you scatter. Okay. So don't get caught up in politics. That's a losing battle. You're not going to fix this nation politically. It's not going to happen. Why would you want to waste your life on something that's a loser? Okay. You need to get involved in the real struggle, which is the spiritual struggle. You know, get in there, read your Bible, pray and participate in the program of the church. You know, come to church, participate, go soul winning, preach the word of God to everyone you know, win everybody to Christ that you possibly can, share the word of God with as many people as you can. That's what's going to fix things in our country. And if you, yeah, but I mean, what if we get the wrong leader? How are we going to go soul winning if we get the wrong leader? They're going to make soul winning illegal. If you do the soul winning, you're going to get the right leader. Yeah, but how are you going to serve God when they make it illegal? Hey, if we do the work of the Lord, God's going to bless us and then it's not going to be illegal. But if you spend your life in a bunch of Fox News Christianity doing a bunch of political stuff and then the work of the Lord's not getting done, the soul winning's not getting done, the church planting and the preaching's not getting done, well then you know what? Even if you get your guy in, he's not going to do the stuff he promised to do while he was running. Spoiler alert. When he gets elected, he's going to do everything different than what he said anyway. So instead of worrying about, oh man, they're going to make it illegal, well, if they make it illegal, I'm just going to keep doing it, amen? But I believe that if we work hard for the Lord, he'll bless us with good laws and he'll bless us with a government that gives us freedom. God's people go into bondage when they're wicked and when they do what's right, he blesses them with freedom and liberty. You know, we've been here for almost 13 years now in Arizona and ever since I've been here, the laws just keep getting better and better. You know, as far as the laws about churches and they're giving tax breaks to landlords who rent to churches and the gun laws are getting better, the home school laws are great, the vaccination laws are great, you know, we can pretty much live a godly and peaceable life in Arizona. You know, I'm perfectly happy here and everything's going well and I'm not being persecuted here. I can preach the word of God and raise my family and so can you and go soul winning and everything. You know, isn't that a blessing? You want to keep it that way? Yeah. Okay. Well, here's how we're going to keep it that way. We win a bunch of people to the Lord, we preach the word of God, we start churches in Arizona, God's going to bless. That's the way to do it. Worry more about that than a political battle because when God's mad at you, bad things happen. So why is Israel going to go through all this? Is it because they elected the wrong guy? No, it's because God is angry with Israel. It says in chapter 24 of 2 Samuel verse 1, again the anger of the Lord was kindled against Israel and he moved David against them to say go number Israel and Judah. Now of course God is not going to directly do that. God doesn't cause people to sin so therefore the devil is the one that actually ends up literally causing David to sin. Okay. So let's go through this chapter, 1 Chronicles chapter 21 verse 2. It says, and David said to Joab unto the rulers of the people, go number Israel from Beersheba even to Dan and bring the number of them to me that I may know it. And Joab answered, the Lord make his people a hundred times so many more as they be, but my Lord the king, are they not all my Lord's servants? Why then doth my Lord require this thing? Why will he be a cause of trespass to Israel? Nevertheless the king's word prevailed against Joab. Therefore Joab departed and went throughout all Israel and came to Jerusalem. So we see here that the big sin that causes God's judgment to be poured out in this chapter is this sin of numbering the people. Now why is this even a sin? A lot of people are perplexed by this saying, you know, what's the big deal? And it seems like Joab understands that this is something that they're not supposed to be doing. And then at the end of the chapter David understands because in 2 Samuel 24 and in 1 Chronicles 21 he acknowledges it and he even says, I've sinned a great sin. So he acknowledges that he's done something wrong. But those of us here in 2018, New Testament Christians, we look at this and we're wondering, okay, what's wrong with numbering the people? Now flip back if you would to Exodus chapter 30. Exodus chapter number 30. Now remember in order for something to be a sin it has to be the transgression of God's law, right? Because the Bible says sin is the transgression of the law in 1 John. So if something's a sin there must be some rule somewhere that's being broken. Otherwise it would be impossible to call something sin if a rule's not being broken, if a line is not being crossed, if a law is not being transgressed. So if we search God's law to figure out what the problem is with David numbering the people then this is what we find, Exodus chapter number 30 and I'm going to begin reading in verse number 12. The Bible reads, when thou takest the sum of the children of Israel after their number. Now stop right there. It doesn't look like numbering the people in and of itself is a sin because God told them to number the people. There's a whole book called Numbers where he tells them to number them once at the beginning of the book. Then at the end of the book they number the people again and then here it sounds like it's a foregone conclusion that they're going to number the people, right? Because it says when, it doesn't say if, it says when thou takest the sum of the children of Israel after their number, then shall they give every man a ransom for his soul unto the Lord. When thou number'st them that there be no plague among them when thou number'st them. This they shall give everyone that passeth among them that are numbered, half a shekel after the shekel of the sanctuary, a shekel is 20 girahs, a half shekel shall be the offering of the Lord. Everyone that passeth among them that are numbered from 20 years old and above shall give an offering unto the Lord. The rich shall not give more and the poor shall not give less than half a shekel when they give an offering unto the Lord to make an atonement for your souls. And thou shall take the atonement money, I mean how many times has he said the word atonement? A lot, right? The atonement money of the children of Israel and shall appoint it for the service of the tabernacle of the congregation that it may be a memorial unto the children of Israel before the Lord to make an atonement for your souls. So notice how it just says over and over again, atonement, atonement, atonement, atonement, atonement. Now if the Bible repeats something that many times, it must be very significant. He doesn't want us to miss it. He's drawing attention to that by just hammering the fact that when they count the people, they have to make an atonement. What does that mean? Well an atonement is basically something that gets you right with God. Some people have used a mnemonic to remember what this word means by breaking it down as at-one-ment, right? Like basically making things right between you and God so that you are at one again. You are back to having fellowship again. So the opposite would be to have a broken fellowship. And sin breaks fellowship between us and God. Now we're saved. We believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. We have the Holy Ghost living inside of us. We are sealed by the Holy Ghost unto the day of redemption. He's the earnest of our salvation. He which began a good work in us will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ. He will never leave us or forsake us. Nothing can separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. But we can have bad fellowship. So just as my son will always be my son, I will always be God's son because I've believed on Christ. I'm born again. I'm a child of God. Nothing can break that bond. Just because my son will always be my son, that doesn't mean that there will never be a rift between me and my son. I mean if my son is disobedient and wicked, that's going to cause a rift between me and my son. Well, when we are sinful, that causes a break in fellowship between us and God. God can get to a point where he's displeased with us or angry with us or where we don't have the same communion and fellowship that we had with God. The Bible says draw nigh to God and he'll draw nigh to you. So that means that sometimes we can be distant from the Lord. We're still his son. We're still saved. We still are indwelled by the Holy Ghost. But there can either be distance or there can be closeness with the Lord. So atonement is something that reconciles people unto God would be a way of putting it. So what the Bible is saying here is that in order to maintain the right relationship with the Lord here, they need to follow this rule. So that when they number the people, they are supposed to collect a small amount of money. This is not a huge amount of money. And it's the same for everybody, the poor and the rich. They all give the same thing, just a half a shekel. And everybody pays it. And what's going to happen if they don't pay it? Well, the Bible tells us. Look back at your Bible there in verse number 12. When thou takest the sum of the children of Israel after their number, then they shall give every man a ransom for his soul unto the Lord, when thou numberest them, that there be no plague among them. So what's going to happen if they number the people and they don't do the atonement? If they don't do the half shekel that's going to make God happy and reconcile them to God and make God pleased with them and keep a good relationship with God, what's the result? It's a plague, right? So if they number the people the wrong way, they get plagued, all right? Now, it's no coincidence that back in 1 Chronicles 21, if you want to go there, when they number the people, they are punished with a great plague or pestilence among the people. Now there's no mention in this chapter of the half shekel. There's no mention in 2 Samuel 24. There's no place that the Bible explicitly tells us, hey, the reason why God's mad is that they did it wrong. They didn't collect the money that was supposed to be the atonement to keep God happy in the process of numbering the people. But the way the Bible works is that the Bible has laws and commandments and statements from God and then the Bible also has stories. So when you're reading 1 and 2 Samuel, 1 and 2 Kings, 1 and 2 Chronicles, you're reading stories. And a lot of times in the story God does not give us a lot of commentary on what's happening. Sometimes he does give us a lot of commentary and sometimes he doesn't. You know, sometimes somebody will do something and God will say, and what they did displeased the Lord or what they did was wrong. But then other times it just matter-of-factly tells you this is what they did and it just moves on to the next thing. You're supposed to interpret the story using the laws, using the statements, using what God said elsewhere. So we see people in the Bible and they're marrying five wives or something, and sometimes God just doesn't even comment on that. But when we go to the law we find out they're not supposed to multiply wives. It's a man cleaves to his wife, they too become one flesh. What God has joined together, let not man put asunder. So when we get to Esther chapter 1 and we see the king divorcing his wife, you know, we realize, okay, that's wrong. We see Vashti disobeying her husband. We realize, okay, she did wrong. Why? Because God said that wives are supposed to obey their husbands. I mean, you have to use the clear statements in the Bible to interpret the story. So when we're reading the story and the Bible says that numbering the people was a transgression and a sin, then we go back to the law and figure out where's the sin, where's the transgression, what did they do wrong? And when we search the law we'll find that numbering the people is no problem because they're told to number the people in multiple places. But we find that when they number the people, they have to take this half shekel. And if they don't, a plague is going to be the result and he hammers, you better make an atonement. You got to make an atonement. You got to make an atonement. Look, the implication there is that if there's no atonement, you're guilty before God. You're going to get punished. You're going to get plagued. That's what happened. Now, do David and Joab understand that? It doesn't seem like they do in this story. It doesn't seem like they're grasping this. But that doesn't mean that that's not what's going on in the story because this just goes to show the importance of knowing your Bible and understanding the Bible because you can't obey the commands of God if you don't know the commands of God. You just saw it clear as day in Exodus 30 that any time you count the people, you must collect that money for the house of the Lord. Did they do that? Clearly not. Therefore, they are plagued. So look down at 1 Chronicles 21. The Bible says in verse 4, Nevertheless, the king's word prevailed against Joab. Wherefore Joab departed and went throughout all Israel and came to Jerusalem. And Joab gave the sum of the number of the people unto David, and all they of Israel were a thousand thousand and a hundred thousand men that drew swords. That's 1.1 million. And Judah was four hundred threescore and ten thousand men that drew sword. But Levi and Benjamin counted he not among them, for the king's word was abominable to Joab. So because Joab doesn't believe in the task that he was given, he purposely leaves out some tribes because he's not wholeheartedly doing it because he knows it's wrong. So he holds back from fully obeying this command. Verse 7, And God was displeased with this thing, therefore he smote Israel. And David said unto God, I have sinned greatly, because I have done this thing. But now I beseech thee, do away the iniquity of thy servant, for I have done very foolishly. And the Lord spake unto Gad David Seir, saying, Go and tell David, saying, Thus saith the Lord, I offer thee three things, choose thee one of them, that I may do it unto thee. So Gad came to David and said unto him, Thus saith the Lord, Choose thee either three years famine or three months to be destroyed before thy foes, while that the sword of thine enemies overtake thee, or else three days the sword of the Lord, even the pestilence in the land, and the angel of the Lord destroying throughout all the coasts of Israel. Now therefore advise thyself what word I shall bring again to him that sent me. And David said unto Gad, I am in a great strait, let me fall now into the hand of the Lord, for very great are his mercies, but let me not fall into the hand of man. So the Lord sent pestilence upon Israel, and there fell of Israel seventy thousand men. Now we see that David's motive in numbering the people is he is trying to measure his military strength, right? So that's why he wants to know the number of the men that draw swords. So he's obviously glorying in the flesh. He's glorying in his physical might and his army's strength. And what is he not thinking about? He's not thinking about the house of God here. He's not thinking about that which is spiritual, which is why he's not doing what? He's taking up the half shekel that's the atonement, money, that was supposed to be taken. Isn't it interesting that at the end of this chapter the resolution of this story is David being wholly focused on the house of God and serving God and he's off of that which is carnal and onto that which is spiritual. So we see here that David is confronted by this prophet Gad and he's given a choice of punishment. This is very strange in the Bible. This is not something that happens very often where someone's given a choice of what their punishment is. You know, usually when God chastises us or disciplines us or punishes us or brings judgment on us, we don't get a choice about it. You know, it comes in whatever form it's going to come. So this is very unique or a rare situation where God actually sends the prophet with a choice for David and says, all right, you have three choices. You can either have three years of famine, three months of getting defeated by your enemies. So these foreign armies that are always out to get you, whether it's the Ammonites, the Philistines, or whoever the enemy is, you're going to lose all those battles. They're going to come in and defeat you and beat your armies for three months straight. Or you can have three days of pestilence or plague or the sword of the Lord destroying throughout all the coasts of Israel. So that's, you know, none of those is a good option. Okay. So let's see what David picks and why. So David said unto Gad, verse 13, I'm in a great strait. Strait, notice it doesn't have a GH there. Strait is a very narrow place, right? So he's basically saying I'm between a rock and a hard place. You know, I'm in this really narrow, I'm kind of in a jam is what he's saying. So he's saying I'm in a great strait. Let me fall now into the hand of the Lord for very great are his mercies, but let me not fall into the hand of man. You know, the last thing he wants is the Philistines coming in and beating him or the Ammonites coming in and defeating him. So that option is just off the table for him. So basically he's either going to choose the famine or he's going to choose the pestilence. I mean, those are, because he wants to fall into the hand of the Lord. He doesn't want his enemies to triumph over him. And you know, I can completely understand what David feels like here because, you know, if I were choosing my punishment, I would want the punishment to affect me, but I wouldn't want the enemies of the Lord to triumph or rejoice. You know, because that's like a double punishment because not only are you doing bad, but you'd hate to see the enemies of the Lord or the enemies of God's work or the enemies of the church. He doesn't want to see them lifted up and rejoicing. He doesn't want the Philistines to thrive. He doesn't want the Ammonites to succeed. He doesn't want the bad guys to glory and rejoice and blaspheme the Lord because, you know, they're winning and all this. So he's pretty much choosing between the three years of famine or the three days of pestilence. And he picks the pestilence. And I think the reason why is because he sort of wants to just rip off the band-aid all at once and get it over with. I mean, look, if you're going to get punished by God, do you want it to last for three years or three days? You'd rather just, you know, even if the three days is a really bad three days, and even if it's more dramatic and extreme, you'd rather just get it over with, okay? And that's the way it is in life, too, with the discipline of the Lord. You'd rather just get it over with. And when it comes to our kids, that's why I believe spanking is the ultimate form of discipline. This is why I believe that God taught this in Scripture, and he says that if you spare the rod, you hate your son, but if you love him, you'll chase him betimes. Withhold not correction from the child, for if thou beatest him with the rod, he shall not die. Thou shalt beat him with the rod and shall deliver his soul from hell. There's no question that the Bible clearly teaches spanking, corporal punishment, okay? And I believe that part of the reason why God wants us to spank our children is because it's the form of punishment that's over the quickest. You know, these other timeouts and go to your room and you're grounded and you're grounded from this and grounded from that, that stuff drags on. And then there's not a restoration of the fellowship because you just have to keep punishing and punishing and punishing and punishing for a week or a month or whatever. Whereas with spanking, it's like you just get it done and you can have immediate restoration of fellowship between parent and child. And so I think that's what David is after here. He's like, look, you know, I want to get back to being in God's good graces. I want the Lord to be pleased with me. I want to have fellowship with the Lord. I'd rather just rip off the Band-Aid, get it over with, go through the chastisement, go through the pain and suffering, and just move on as a nation, pick up the pieces. We certainly don't want to fall into the hands of the uncircumcised, but between the two choices, I'll take the one of the last three days. So that's what he does. So it says in verse 14, so the Lord sent pestilence upon Israel, and there fell of Israel seventy thousand men. So notice, David at the beginning is counting the people. That's the big sin. That's the big mistake he made. Well, why is he counting the people? Because he wants to glory in the amount of troops. Well, he just lost seventy thousand troops, or he lost seventy thousand men, so now his number just went down. So it's better just to not count and trust the Lord, right, than when you start counting and then, oh, now you lost seventy thousand because you disobeyed. So if we do what's right, God's going to bless us. If we do wrong, God curses us. Look at verse 15. And God sent an angel unto Jerusalem to destroy it. And as he was destroying, the Lord beheld, and he repented him of the evil, and said to the angel that destroyed, It is enough, stay now thine hand. And the angel of the Lord stood by the threshing floor of Orin and the Jebusite. So this angel of the Lord is carrying out God's wrath on Israel. He's carrying out the punishment on Israel that they have merited. Because this isn't all, you say, well, this is all just because David counted the people? No, no, no, remember, why did this all happen? Because the Lord was angry with Israel, the whole nation. God was angry at the nation in general. That's why he moved David to number them in the first place. So these people are being punished. The angel of the Lord is destroying Jerusalem, but God stops the angel of the Lord from destroying Jerusalem. Why? Because he's being merciful here. So he's merciful unto them. He's not going to give them the full punishment that they deserve, not the full punishment that was planned, but he repents him of the evil and says to the angel that destroyed, it is enough. So he tells them, okay, stop, you've done enough. He decides to go easy on them and show mercy. Now, he shows mercy on them in a particular place that becomes a significant place. Because it says that the angel of the Lord stood by the threshing floor, at the end of verse 15, of Orin and the Jebusite. So as the angel is coming to destroy, God specifically withholds his wrath in this particular place, which is the threshing floor of Orin and the Jebusite. So this is the place that God specifically picks to show mercy on Israel. It says in verse 16, and David lifted up his eyes and saw the angel of the Lord stand between the earth and the heaven, having a drawn sword in his hand stretched out over Jerusalem. Then David and the elders of Israel, who were clothed in sackcloth, fell upon their faces. And David said unto God, Is it not I that commanded the people to be numbered? Even I it is that have sinned and done evil indeed. But as for these sheep, what have they done? Let thine hand, I pray thee, O Lord my God, be on me and on my Father's house, but not on thy people that they should be plagued. So what he's saying here is, you know, it's not them, it's me. Punish me. Now let me ask you this. Is it really just David who did wrong? And the people? What have these sheep done? Is that really accurate, what David's saying here? No, it's not, because we know from reading 2 Samuel 24, verse 1, that actually the nation as a whole was guilty. And they're being punished because of bad stuff that they did. Either David doesn't realize that or David is just kind of throwing himself under the bus because he's just basically wanting to be the sacrifice and say punish me instead of them. Okay? And we're going to come back to that. But either way, what he's saying is not technically accurate because God is angry with the people. The people have indeed sinned. They provoked the Lord to anger in the first place. Then the angel of the Lord commanded Gad to say to David that David should go up and set up an altar under the Lord in the threshing floor of Ornan the Jebesite. Verse 19, and David went up at the saying of Gad which he spake in the name of the Lord and Ornan turned back and saw the angel and his four sons with him hid themselves. Now Ornan was threshing wheat. And as David came to Ornan, Ornan looked and saw David and went out of the threshing floor and bowed himself to David with his face to the ground. Then David said to Ornan, grant me the place of this threshing floor that I may build an altar therein unto the Lord. Thou shalt grant it for me for the full price that the plague may be saved from the people. So I know this is a complicated chapter but try to hang with me here. So this destroying angel is coming to destroy Jerusalem and God pauses it right at this certain point at the threshing floor of Ornan the Jebesite and says, all right, don't go any further. Don't destroy it. But the angel has not turned back. The angel still has the sword drawn. He's just on pause. Well then God tells David now, you need to build an altar unto me in that spot to make atonement. You need to build an altar and make sacrifice in this spot in order to stop the plague. So basically the judgment is not reversed, it's just paused. And it's going to continue unless David does what he's told so he has to get there immediately and build this altar and make a sacrifice unto the Lord in order to withhold God's hand of wrath. So when he comes to Ornan, he says, hey, I need to buy this from you. You know, I want to buy this place because I need to take it over and build an altar here and offer this sacrifice. And so Ornan basically just says, well, I'm just going to give it all to you. You can have it. I mean, you're King David. Take it. It's yours. If this is what God told you to do, you can have it. But David told him, he said, no, I'm not going to take it for free. I don't want to offer a sacrifice to the Lord that costs me nothing. So I'm going to pay for it. So he ends up weighing it out. Look at verse 25. So David gave to Ornan for the place 600 shekels of gold by weight and David built there an altar unto the Lord and offered burnt offerings and peace offerings and called upon the Lord and he answered him from heaven by fire upon the altar of burnt offering and the Lord commanded the angel and he put up a sword again into the sheath thereof. So at this point, now the angel's done destroying. Now that the sacrifice and the burnt offerings have been made, now the angel puts the sword in his sheath and it's like, okay, it's not just paused, but it's actually over now. Okay. So he backs off. Verse 28, at that time when David saw that the Lord had answered him in the threshing floor of Ornan the Jebusite, then he sacrificed there. He answered him because David's asking that the plague be stopped and that the destruction stop and that's what happened. Now let's jump down to chapter 22, verse 1, okay. We'll come back to the verse that we skipped, but look at chapter 22, verse 1. Then David said, this is the house of the Lord God and this is the altar of the burnt offering for Israel and David commanded to gather together the strangers that were in the land of Israel and he set masons to hew rot stones to build the house of God. So I'm not going to read that whole chapter, but this becomes the site of the temple. This becomes the location of the temple and we're talking about the temple that Solomon builds and later, of course, it's going to be destroyed and then rebuilt and in Christ's day there's going to be that temple there, right? And Jesus walked into that temple and so on and so forth. So this becomes the house of God or the location, the permanent location of God's house instead of being the temporary tabernacle, the tent that moved around. This is going to become the semi-permanent location where they make the actual brick and mortar temple, the gold plated structure that we know from the Bible. Now what we need to understand is that when we're reading the book of 1 Chronicles, the symbolism is very heavy in 1 Chronicles, probably almost more than any other book out of 1 and 2 Samuel, 1 and 2 Kings, 1 and 2 Chronicles. The one that really points to Christ the most is probably 1 Chronicles. I mean, 1 Chronicles really strongly has David picturing Christ and what we need to understand is that when we read the Old Testament that these things are an allegory, all right? Sorry David Cloud, I'm going to take everybody to the dark forest of allegorical interpretation. Let me explain something to you. The Bible uses the word allegory, okay? Now hopefully a lot of you know what the word allegory means, otherwise I'll explain it to you in the best way that I can. But an allegory is where each character represents someone and each action represents something else than what you're actually literal reading. So there's a literal reading and then there's an allegorical reading, okay? Now here's what we need to understand about this though. Just because the Bible is often an allegory, it doesn't mean that these things did not really happen and that's where people get into heresy is if they say, oh, this never even happened. That's false doctrine, that's a lie. The true story is that it actually happened and it's an allegory. The problem is when people try to make it one or the other. So if somebody says, oh, the Bible's an allegory, there was no King David, there's no such person as Solomon, there was no such person, I mean obviously that person just is denying the Bible at that point. That person's calling God a liar. I mean Jesus Christ walked around and talked about these people and he stated that they were real people and obviously the Bible is telling this as a history. It's giving genealogies, for crying out loud, of who all these people are, who their descendants are. I mean, you remember the first nine chapters? Don't make me go back over those names, okay? If they're not real people, then why does he give us their names, their families, their ages, everything about them? No, these things really happened, but they are also an allegory. That's why sometimes when you're reading Bible stories, the events seem a little strange and you wonder like, why is God doing that? Why would he do that? I mean, this chapter is a little bit odd, isn't it? I mean, when you're reading this chapter, you're kind of thinking like, this is a little bit strange, some of these events. I mean, there's this giant angel with the sword drawn, but the reason why is that things had to happen in exactly a certain way in order for the allegory to be there, okay? So it's the same thing. Now, when does the Bible use the term allegory? The Bible used the term allegory in Galatians Chapter 4, okay? And flip over there if you would. We'll come right back to this. I got to hurry for sake of time, but just go to Galatians Chapter 4 because I don't want you to get spooked by the word allegory. And it's funny how people have attacked me for preaching an allegorical interpretation, but the Bible says it's an allegory. You know, I'm leading you into the dark forest of allegorical interpretations, but – and here's what people will say about people who believe like us. They'll say, well, you know, those who believe in replacement theology or, you know, those who reject dispensationalism, they tend to spiritualize things. Amen. Yeah, yeah, we tend to – that's because we're in the Spirit. It's because we're Spirit-filled. It's because we are Spirit-led. It's because the Bible is spiritually discerned. So yeah, right, we sure do tend to spiritualize things. You know, these dispensationalists, they tend to carnalize things. They're so obsessed with the flesh, they need to understand the flesh profits nothing. It's the Spirit that quickeneth. And you know, they're so concerned with their carnal, fleshly, physical nation of Israel that they bow down and worship, they're missing the spiritual significance of Abraham's seed and the promised land and the people of God. Yeah, we do tend to spiritualize things. I guess we're just spiritual like that. But if you would, look at Galatians chapter 4, and the Bible says in verse 22, For it is written that Abraham had two sons, the one by a bondmaid, the other by a free woman. But he who was of the bondwoman was born after the flesh, but he of the free woman was by promise, which things are an allegory. Now what he's not saying here is that, hey, there really was nobody named Abraham. There was no Sarah. She didn't have a son named Isaac or Ishmael. Abraham wasn't really 100 years old. It's all just symbolic. That's not what he's saying here. But what he's saying is that those events happened that way, not just because that's how those people happen to live their lives, but God worked in those people's lives in order to create an allegory to teach something deeper. So when we look at the story of Abraham, Sarah, Isaac, Ishmael, we're supposed to take that story literally because it actually did happen. But when it comes to the meaning that we derive from it, there's an allegorical interpretation. So the Bible says in verse 24, which things are an allegory, for these are the two covenants, the one from Mount Sinai, which tendereth the bondage, which is Agar. Agar is Hagar. So he's saying that person in the story, that lady named Hagar, she is an allegory for the Old Covenant, the Old Testament. Agar is Mount Sinai, right? That's where Moses got the Ten Commandments. And answerth to Jerusalem, which now is, and it is bondage with her children, but Jerusalem, which is above, is free, which is the mother of us all. Now look, Jerusalem is not really our mother. It's like that book, Are You My Mother? You know, you walk up to Jerusalem, are you my mother? You know, obviously, what it's saying here is symbolically or metaphorically that the heavenly Jerusalem is the mother of us all. Look at verse 28. Now we, brethren, as Isaac was, are the children of the promised. But as then, he that was born after the flesh persecuted him that was born after the Spirit, even so it is now. So the allegory is that Isaac represents Christians, right? Because Paul is writing to Christians, he's writing to the Gentiles and Galatia, born again Christians, and he's saying, you know what? We are just like Isaac because we're the children of promise. We are the seed of Abraham. We're the chosen. We're in Christ. And Ishmael represents the Jews. And just like Ishmael made fun of Isaac, which when you're reading in Genesis seems like kind of a petty thing, I mean, whose kid hasn't made fun of another kid in the family? Who has never made fun of your younger brother or sister at some point in your whole life? So again, sometimes when you're reading things in the Bible, you're like, why did this happen this way? Because it's an allegory, okay? It really happened that way, but it happened that way for a reason. Isaac being mocked by Ishmael is an allegory of Jews persecuting Christians, okay? That's why it says, as it was then, he that was born after the flesh. So who are the children of Abraham according to the flesh? The Jews, right? Who are the children of Abraham according to the Spirit? Christians. So the Jews persecute the Christians. Well, if you read the book of Acts, that's what happened, right? All throughout the book of Acts, the Jews are persecuting the Christians all the way from the beginning of the book to the end of the book. So that's what the allegory was teaching. Does everybody understand? Okay. So quickly in the last few minutes that we have, here's the allegory of 1 Chronicles chapter 21, is that God is angry, God is displeased, God is pouring out his wrath and vengeance, but God shows mercy and withholds his wrath, withholds his judgment, withholds his vengeance so that certain people are spared. Certain people get wiped out, but certain people end up being spared, right? David represents Jesus Christ. David steps in and basically says, hey, punish me and let them off the hook. Isn't that basically what he was saying? So that's the symbolism. He's saying punish me, I want to take the punishment, let them go free. This is an allegory of the fact that Jesus Christ took all of our punishment, he voluntarily said all their sins are going to be on me, and he died on the cross for our sins and lets us off the hook even though we truly were guilty, just like the people in the story were truly guilty, according to 2 Samuel 24.1, David volunteers to take their punishment. Now in the story, of course, David is not physically punished, but that's not the point. The point is Jesus was physically punished and it's just an allegory and you can't take the allegory too far. Not only that, but this place where the angel stops becomes a significant place because that's the place where burnt sacrifices and offerings are going to be made unto the Lord in that exact place. That place is what? It's the dividing line between the people that get destroyed and the people who survive. So this place, the threshing floor of Iran of the Jebusite, is standing between the dead and the living because destruction has happened up to that point, but after that point there's no more destruction because it stops. So what is that point that makes the difference between dying and living, that makes the point between God's wrath and God's mercy, that place is a place of sacrifice, of an animal upon an altar where the blood is spilled and a burnt offering takes place. Well that represents what? Jesus Christ, who is the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world, those animals that were sacrificed represent Jesus being sacrificed, his blood shed on the cross, and his sacrifice is the difference between being on the wrong side of God's wrath and being on the right side of God's mercy. Jesus Christ is the one that makes the difference. The sacrifice, that offering of Jesus Christ on the cross makes that difference. And then also David in that place, praying, saying, punish me, don't punish them, represents the fact that that's exactly what Jesus was doing. He's taken our punishment. He's saying punish me, Father forgive them, they know not what they do, and he takes upon him the sin of the world. He who knew no sin became sin for us that we might be made the righteousness of God in him. So when you see this story and things might seem a little odd, you know, why is God doing things in such a dramatic fashion, why that place, why does he start destroying and then back off and stop? Well because he's trying to illustrate something that's a lot more important than just David and his problems in that generation because, you know, frankly the things that happened in Israel 3,000 years ago in regard to this pestilence, we're not really feeling the repercussions of that right now. You know, when we read about this plague, it doesn't really affect us, right? But I mean it affected them at the time, obviously. To us, it's just words on a page that we read. But what is applicable to us today in October of 2018 is the allegorical interpretation which says, hey, you know what, Jesus Christ is the difference between death and life. He is the sacrifice. He's the one who is willing to take our punishment for us. That's the real significant thing in this story. So when we read the Bible, you know, we need to find Jesus Christ on every page. You know, this is the right way to interpret the Bible is to spiritualize it, friend. That's the right way to read the Bible. The right way to read the Bible is to understand that to Him, Jesus Christ, give all the prophets witness. So if you're finding Jesus all throughout Genesis, you're finding Jesus in the story of Adam and Eve, Cain and Abel. If you're finding Jesus in the story of Noah's Ark and you're finding Jesus in the story of Abraham, Isaac, Ishmael, Sarah, Hagar. If you're finding Jesus in the story of Joseph being sold into Egypt and all those things. If you're finding Jesus in the story about Moses and the Exodus and crossing the Red Sea and wandering in the wilderness, if you find Jesus when the serpent is being lifted up on the pole in the wilderness, hey, you're reading the Bible right. If you're finding Jesus in Isaiah, Jesus in Jeremiah, Jesus in Ezekiel, Jesus in 1 and 2 Samuel, that's when you're reading the Bible the right way. Because the New Testament is what it's all about. And the New Testament explains the Old Testament. And once we know what the New Testament teaches, we can read the Old Testament and understand all of it. And this is why the Jews don't get it. The Jews don't get it because Jesus is on every page and they don't see Him anywhere. Right? So they're reading it wrong. So don't let these dispensationalists tell you, oh, well, you know, you're spiritualizing things. It's all about God's bride, Israel. No, the bride of Jesus Christ is going to be made up of all believers. Okay? I'm going to be part of that bride. You're going to be part of that bride. All of us that are saved are going to make up that great bride of Christ. You know, Christ loved the church like a husband loves his wife. Okay? And on and on. The Bible is so clear. And by the way, it's not a physical city that's the bride of Christ as some people have erroneously taught. When the Bible talks about the city, it's talking about the people in the city. It's not like God's just going to, you know, bring down some city to marry Jesus. He's like, like, it's like one of these stories that you see on Facebook where some woman marries a bridge or something, you know what I'm talking about? Now it's like, oh, you know, woman in England marries a tree or married a bridge or she's in love with this carnival ride or whatever. You know, there's all these weird daily mail news stories that pop up every once in a while, you know, telling you about marrying inanimate objects. But you know, some of these dispensationalists are so stupid that's what they actually believe, like that God is going to marry dirt and land and geography. You know, and by the way, when the Bible says God so loved the world, you know that's the people in the world, right? When it says God so loved the world, I mean, it's just, come on. It's the saved that are the bride, okay. The city is filled with people. The nations of them which are saved shall walk in the light of it, it says. So what is the city but the people? The world is the people. The nation is the people. Israel is people, okay. So the bride is born again, children of God, up in heaven. There's going to be the wedding and whatever and I'm not doing a big end times thing to explain all the details of that. But the point, how did I get off on that? Where am I, where was I going with that? What's that? Yeah. What's that? Yeah, amen, brother. So, you know, the point is, oh, yeah, yeah, I know where I was going with it. This overly literal interpretation to the point of ridiculousness like, oh, the city, well, that's concrete buildings and whatever, no, no, no. This overly carnal interpretation of the Bible that wants to say everything's about the Jews and the nation of Israel instead of taking the spiritual application that it's about who? Jesus. Look, I'd rather spend my days reading about Jesus in the 39 books of the Old Testament than reading about a bunch of Jews. I don't know about you, but I'd rather read about Jesus Christ than, you know, Goldstein, whatever, Zuckerberg, whatever Jew name. You know, I mean, it's so carnal the way that people understand the Bible, right? They need to learn a little bit about allegory. They need to learn a little bit about the fact that everything in the Old Testament is truly about Jesus Christ. And that's what you need to see in this story. Did it really happen? Absolutely. It happened exactly the way it said it happened. I mean, look, people saw this fearsome, destroying angel. I mean, Iran has four kids. They ran and hid from it. David saw it. The elders of Israel saw it. They were all freaked out. It was really there with a big sword in his hand about to wipe out the city. So when we say it's an allegory, we're not attacking the historicity of what happened. But what we are saying is that there's more to the story than just what meets the eye. And it's not just as simple as, yeah, God sent an angel and, you know, no, no, no. It's about Jesus. It's about redemption. It's about salvation. And, look, there are a lot more spiritual truths that you could pull out of this story. I mean, we're only scratching the surface in tonight's sermon. I mean, we could sit for hours and talk about this chapter and just flesh out all the symbolism. This represents that. This represents that. But we don't want to make allegory the anchor of our soul. We want to base what we believe on clear statements. But once we have clear statements, like, he who knew no sin became sin for us, that we might be made the righteousness of God in him. We take that clear statement, and then we understand the allegory. So what is the purpose of the allegories in the Bible? Well, are they the anchor of our doctrine? No, the anchor of our doctrine are the clear statements of the New Testament, right? That's what we base our belief on, things like John 3.16, you know, just concrete statements in the Word of God. What allegories do, they don't serve as a proof text to prove, here, I'm going to prove that Jesus is our Savior. Turn to 1 Chronicles 21. No, we want to prove Jesus is our Savior, we're going to go where? We're going to go to the book of John. We're going to go to the book of Romans. We're going to go to the book of Galatians, right? We're going to go to clear New Testament scripture. So then what is the purpose of all this allegory? The purpose of allegory is that it inspires us, and it also really paints a much more graphic picture of salvation here for us. When we read all these stories that illustrate just this dramatic angel destroying and God's wrath, and then it just stopping and being placated, you know, what this does is it really drives in the spiritual truth that's being illustrated. And so it's very inspirational. You know, you walk away from it saying, wow, now I really comprehend in a deeper way what Christ's sacrifice meant here. When you see David just seeing people getting killed and they're dying of disease, and he's saying, infect me with the disease, I mean, that's basically what he's saying. I mean, there's a pestilence, a plague, people are dying. And he's basically saying, Lord, punish me instead. I mean, that's a pretty dramatic image, right? So what does it do? It gives us a greater appreciation for Jesus. It gives us a greater appreciation for his sacrifice, and it gives us a more graphic or vivid understanding of salvation. So it's not something that we would use to prove doctrine. It's something that we would use to get a deeper understanding of doctrine in our hearts. Let's bow our heads and have a word of prayer. Father, we thank you so much for your word, Lord, and we thank you for the power of your word. The power of the gospel, thank you for the clear teachings of the New Testament, but Lord, we also thank you for the allegorical teachings of the Old Testament whereby we can gain deeper insight and really understand on a gut level the work of Jesus in our salvation, our redemption. Amen.