Sunday School | David - 2 Samuel 24

All right. So did you guys find your way to 2 Samuel chapter 24? All right. So here we go.

You guys, we've been studying David's life for one hundred years, and we're finally at the last chapter of 2 Samuel. It's not really the last chapter of his story. His story bleeds a little bit into what comes after Samuel in the narrative. What is it? Kings. And then you guys know how Kings and Chronicles relate—it gets a little bit confusing. But we could continue here. We're not going to continue on this whole story. We might do like one more week. We'll see how far we get. We're going to be in the last chapter of 2 Samuel, and it's a doozy too. There's a whole bunch of strange things that are going down, but we're going to pick it up.

2 Samuel 24, and we're going to read verse one. Here's what it says:

Again, the anger of the Lord burned against Israel, and He incited David against them, saying, "Go and take a census of Israel and Judah." — 2 Samuel 24:1

This is weird. This is going to take a little while to peel back here. In order to bring judgment against Israel, God incited David to take a census of Israel and Judah. This raises so many different questions, but let's start with the first one. What does it mean that God incited David?

First of all, what's weird about this? James says that God causes no one to be tempted. Is it saying that God is compelling David to do something bad and then punishing him for having done it? That's super weird.

How is God mad again? That's so funny, and with a little bit of edge in your voice—like, man, this is so funny. All right, you guys pray for Kat, then she doesn't get killed on the way home.

So what does it mean, you guys—inciting? I mean, that God is inciting David. Is he prompting him? Is he compelling him? Is he tempting him? What is he doing to make David do this thing?

So we're going to get to the what's up with the census itself, and why is that a bad thing? We'll unpack that in a minute. But yeah, so maybe God is just tempting him. But Bob just said that God doesn't tempt anyone. Bob says that James said that Stuart is wrong.

So we're going to make it even worse. Listen, Kelly's going to make it worse. In the Chronicles account, which is a parallel of 2 Samuel, it does not say that God incited David to take a census against Israel. It specifically and explicitly and unambiguously says that Satan incited David to take a census of Israel.

Wait. So in 2 Samuel, it is Yahweh who incites David to take a census of Israel, and in Chronicles, it is Satan who incites David to take a census of Israel. But doesn't God have to give permission?

So hang on. We'll start to resolve it once we're all super unhappy about everything. First of all, you've got what is God doing—seemingly tempting or tricking or what is that? And then, oh, did it just get better or worse? We're like, oh no, no, no, it wasn't the Lord, it was the devil. Although we actually just said it was the Lord, so it's both. This is all very strange.

Maybe not tempting, but testing. Does God test? I think the book of Job is a good sign that the Lord does. Yeah. So we do see this. There's a couple of key observations here. Number one is we see in the book of Job that whatever Satan wants to do, he has to get permission to do it. And God says, you know, you can do this, but you can't touch him, or you can touch him, but you can't kill him. He draws these boundaries, and sometimes the boundaries are like, man, maybe I wish you wouldn't have done that. But it's true.

You see the same thing when Jesus has this little conversation with Peter, and he says:

Peter, Satan has demanded to sift you as wheat. — Luke 22:31

It's like in the same way that Satan is acting against Job, Satan has come and said, "Hey, I want to mess with Peter." And God says, "Okay, alright, you can go this far, but no further." So there's some sense in that.

I think what that can help us do is whereas you might think that what Satan does and what God does are like as opposite as you could be, and it's a terrible thing to confuse these two parties.

In fact, the Bible teaches that 100% of what Satan does, he does under the authority, within the prescribed limits of God, that God will give him leash and no further. Right? Which may feel strange to you, but is what the scriptures teach.

So Robin's saying, whatever God is doing, He allows things for our good, His glory, and we may not be able to make sense of it all, but this is routinely seen, and it's true. It's troubling to us. It's maybe surprising, but I think there's strong evidence for it.

I think that's an apt summary. We're gonna look at a couple of these. Multiple places in scripture that God is very comfortable using evil men to accomplish a good end. And it's a good thing because what else is he gonna work with? We're troubled, like why did God use this evil thing? Well, don't know. Why did he use you? He's always working through our mixed motives or badness or brokenness, whatever. He does. Sometimes it's rather pointed, and there's a few examples of that we're gonna look at.

Joseph's Story

You're thinking of the Joseph and Potiphar story. Yeah, in Genesis 50. Yes, okay. And we'll come back to this as a recap of the whole thing, but you're jumping to the end of the story here. This is exactly right. There is this really significant moment in the life of Joseph. So Joseph gets sold away into slavery, he's given over to death, he's accused of rape, he's put in prison, he's forgotten. All of this terrible stuff happens, all of this stuff where his brothers betray him, where Potiphar's wife lies about him, all this stuff. And when it's all said and done, the result of all of it is that Joseph ascends to the right hand of the king. And he's seated in a position of authority where he can bless and provide for the people of God.

In that reflection, I think it's verse 20, it's definitely Genesis 50, it might be 50:20, you can look it up if I'm wrong. He makes this famous statement. The brothers all come cowering before him because they're like, "Oh, now that our brother's the king and now that our dad is dead, Joseph's gonna cut off our heads." And Joseph is gracious to them, and he says:

You meant it for evil, but God meant it for good, to accomplish what is now being done the salvation of many people. — Genesis 50:20

Joseph is able, even though he is the center of the pain, he's able to say, "God, you worked through your wickedness to accomplish a good end." And that really, at the end of the day, that crystallizes that God routinely works through sinful people, and hear this, through sin itself, to accomplish a good end. Right?

There's other examples where God accomplishes what he does through the intermediaries, and it's necessarily the case that his intermediaries are sinful. Literally, there's no other tools that he can use apart from sinful people, and so sometimes it is attributed directly to those intermediaries, but sometimes the Scriptures will point us higher and say, "No, God was behind it all," which is admittedly uncomfortable.

Pointed Examples from Scripture

Here's a few. I'll read you some of the most pointed examples of this. This is from 1 Kings 22. Listen to this, how strange this is:

Therefore hear the word of the Lord. I saw the Lord sitting on his throne with all the hosts of heaven standing around him on his right and on his left. — 1 Kings 22:19

Now, first thing you have to notice here, this is a strange insight. The Old Testament, in a couple different spots, pictures God like you might think of the President and his cabinet. Right? This host of Heaven is like his cabinet, this collection of rulers, these spiritual leaders, other angelic beings, and he's like having a conference. What should we do about this? It's just like Abraham Lincoln and his cabinet.

So here's Yahweh, and he asks this question:

The Lord said, "Who will entice Ahab into attacking Ramoth Gilead and going to his death there?" One suggested this and another that. Finally, a spirit came forward, stood before the Lord, and said, "I will entice him." And the Lord asked, "By what means?" "I will go out and be a lying spirit in the mouths of all his prophets," he said. "You will succeed in enticing him," said the Lord. "Go and do it." So now the Lord has put a lying spirit in the mouths of all these prophets of yours. The Lord has decreed disaster for you. — 1 Kings 22:19-23

Isn't that super strange? Super weird?

Here's another one that's strange:

For this reason God sends them a powerful delusion so that they will believe the lie. — 2 Thessalonians 2:11

God sends a delusion so that they will believe the lie.

Habakkuk 1:6, how about this one?

I'm raising up the Babylonians, that ruthless and impetuous people who sweep across the whole earth to seize dwelling places not their own. — Habakkuk 1:6

You guys, it would be as if God says, I am using North Korea, my chosen instrument, to go in and just eradicate America. And you'd be like, Woah, woah. Habakkuk is all about, How are you using someone more wicked to swallow up someone more righteous, and they're doing this and you're approving them? What is up with that? So there's delusion, there's empowering these, and then there's this. Listen to this one. This one might be familiar to you, but I don't know if you've ever thought of it in these terms.

The kings of the earth take their stand, and the rulers gather together against the Lord and against His anointed one. — Acts 4:26

Do you recognize that, by the way? That's Acts 4, but what's that from? Psalm two, baby. I love that. Psalm 2.

The kings of the earth take their stand, and the rulers gather together against the Lord and against His anointed one. Indeed, Herod and Pontius Pilate met together with the Gentiles and the people of Israel in this city to conspire against your holy servant Jesus whom you anointed. They did, these wicked people, in wretched sin, they did what your power and will had decided beforehand should happen. — Acts 4:26-28

What he's saying is that that idea—that they meant it for evil, but you meant it for good—that phenomena is exactly what was happening on the cross. The cross was the most unjust moment in human history, and it was directed by God. He had decided by His will and His power beforehand what should happen.

And so even if you're like, Man, what's up with this thing about inciting the censorship? What is up with this thing about being a lying prophet, a lying tongue in the mouths of the prophets? You guys, the centerpiece of your faith, the cross of Jesus Christ, is the pinnacle example of God using wicked people to accomplish a good end, nevertheless at His direction. Does that make sense? So this is not some weird little splinter thing. This is the centerpiece for us, is to think about this.

How is this just?

So let's address the problem. How is it just for God to do this? No more problems, only solutions. What do we make of this—that God would use wicked people to accomplish a good end under his control?

There's nothing else that he can use. That's all that he has to work with is us. It's absolutely true. So not only does he have nothing else to work with, but there would be some problem with him creating something new to work with, making a new clean version. He is, in some level, obligated to use the world that he made, lest he admit that there was some failing or some flaw in that. I think that's interesting reasoning.

Let me get a couple more ideas. I would quibble with you on the free will. I think once the fall occurred, we really lost our freedom of will. Not that we're slaves to Satan—I mean, slaves to God—but we're slaves to sin. We have a tendency to congratulate ourselves on having a free will, but the Scriptures don't actually affirm this. What they affirm is that we're slaves. We're not free, we're slaves. We're not slaves to God, we're slaves to sin. And I think that is a really important piece.

God is exercising—we are so incompetent at using evil to accomplish a good end, right, because we ourselves are in this evil. But God is so brilliant, so above it, that He has a way to do it. There's a particular way that He does it. He uses sin to accomplish His end.

What we can affirm entirely, and we should affirm, is that God is good. He is holy. He is just. He is everything delightful and positive. Here's what he's doing, here's what he's not doing: In every one of these instances, he is allowing people that are already bad, that already have a propensity to do bad things, to simply do as they will. He's never saying, You know what, you're holy, you're just so sweet, you're doing such a great job. We're going to make you do bad things. He doesn't do that. In every instance, the Babylonians, they wanted to show up and to wipe out Israel. Right?

This king here in 1 Kings, Ahab, he loved having people tickle his ears and say false things to him. And his prophets, they loved currying favor with the king. They loved getting before him and saying the words that you're going to like so you'll like me, you know, give me some advantage. You'll pet me in some way.

What God is always doing is he takes wicked people, and the phrase that Paul uses in Romans is he gives them over. That he doesn't say, "You are gonna be good today, but I'm gonna make you be bad today." He never does that. Rather, He says, "Okay, fine, as you wish." And He allows us in our selfishness, in our sin, in our broken strategies to just do what we're gonna do.

God's Restraint of Sin

If He doesn't restrain our sin—and I don't know if you've experienced this, but God is constantly restraining sin. Like all the time, right? And he has a whole bunch of levers that he can pull to do this.

What are some of the things in your life? What restrains your sin? Let's get a couple practical things for you. What keeps you from just wanton ruination of your life?

There may be things you want to say, things you want to do, but you just run the math and you're like, "You know what? If I do that, there'll be downstream consequences that I won't like." And the fear of consequence, whether it's your own suffering or the suffering of somebody you care about, limits you.

I think about Ephesians 5:22. It's God's design for marriage. It doesn't allow for you to just explode and go off, right? So you read God's Word and He says to you, "Love your wife like Christ loves the church." And you're like, "Oh, I wasn't gonna do that, but okay." So you're reminded. So God's Word is alive, right? His Spirit is alive, to be like, "Hey, stop." And it constrains what you otherwise would have done.

Have you ever had somebody be like, "Oh, no, no, no, no, don't do that"? Has that ever happened to you? And you're like, "Okay, thank you, because I was absolutely gonna do that." Fear of punishment. Some of you specifically have not done some horrible thing because you didn't want to go to jail. Right? Some of you might really like to cheat on your taxes because of money. But then you're like, "But I don't know, they just added like 200,000 IRS agents, so I won't." And that's a real thing. You're constrained by fear of punishment.

Or maybe in your life you've ever hurt somebody, and you remember how much you hated that, and so you think, "I don't want to do that again because I hated the way that felt when I saw them be crestfallen." I don't want to do that. There's all sorts of things that God does to restrain our sin.

Has it ever happened that those things were missing? Has it ever been like, "All we gotta do is get out of the way"? I don't need to compel you to do something selfish. All I have to do is just get out of the way, and you're just gonna roll down the hill. So it's helpful to think of yourself as being like a wheel on a hill, and if there's not chalk underneath that wheel, I don't need to give you a push. It's just gonna happen. Gravity is always in effect. And if you think of your fallen nature as being like gravity, we need a wing to keep you in the air. We need chalk to keep you from rolling down. If I pull out the chalk, you're just going down. That's what we see. God does this all the time. He's not compelling righteous people to become unrighteous. He's just letting us do what we otherwise were going to do.

And he talks about this explicitly. If you go back to Romans—for the sake of time we won't look at it—but look at the opening chapters of Romans, Romans 1 and into Romans 2, where he keeps using the phrase, "God gave them over." God gave them over. He didn't make them worse. He's like, "All right, have at it, as you wish." And then things spin into greater levels of pain.

So I think this is what he's doing. He does it seemingly with some frequency. But he's so wise and he's so righteous that he can do it perfectly, and he can work through all of this corruption of man, and then end up with the good end. Joseph—all of this corruption and wickedness of the Jewish leadership and the Roman leadership, and all the various motives, and then we end up with the redemption of the world accomplished through the wretchedness of man. And this is what he's been doing the whole time, okay?

That's verse one. Ready? Alright, let's keep going.

So, verse two. The king said to Joab and the army commanders with him, "Go throughout the tribes of Israel from Dan to Beersheba and enroll the fighting men, so that I may know how many there are." But Joab said, "Woah, May the Lord your God multiply the troops a hundred times over, and may the eyes of my lord the king see it. But why does my lord the king want to do such a thing?" The king's word, however, overruled Joab and the army commanders, and so they left the presence of the king to enroll the fighting men of Israel.

Have you ever had your boss have a bad idea? And you're like, "Oh, no, no, no." And your boss is like, "Do it." Okay. That's what just happened here, right?

Now here's the thing. Why does Joab know that this is a bad idea? Here's the problem: Jennifer is saying something they weren't supposed to count. Here's what's wrong with this though. If you go to Exodus 30, verse 12, it says this:

When you take a census of the Israelites to count them, each one must pay the Lord a ransom for his life at the time he's counted. Then no plague will come on them when you number them. — Exodus 30:12

Specifically, plagues and census. How about this? Numbers. Do you know why Numbers is called Numbers? The whole thing is about a census. The first thing that happens in the book of Numbers is they take a census. Like, hey, how many of you are there? And then a bunch of stuff happens, and then at the end of the book, you're like, let's count again and let's just see. Numbers is about the census results of two different censuses. That's what it is.

And so in Numbers 1:2, it says:

Take a census of the whole Israelite community by their clans and families, listing every man by name, one by one. — Numbers 1:2

And in Numbers 26:2, it says:

Take a census of the whole Israelite community by families, all those twenty years old or more who were able to serve in the army of Israel. — Numbers 26:2

So what on earth is wrong with taking a census? There have been literally commands to take a census. Do you see why this is a strange passage? Everything in this is weird. Is it God or Satan? Does God use wickedness? Are we busted for not doing this? Everything about this is odd. So what's up? Why can't David take a census if you can clearly take a census?

Who's talking right now? Robin? Paying this ransom thing? Yeah. Okay, so Robin's thing is, well, maybe the problem is that David wasn't obeying something. Something has changed. David wasn't obeying this thing in Exodus 30. Exodus 30 says:

When you take a census, each one must pay the Lord a ransom for his life at the time he is counted. Then no plague will come on them when you number them. — Exodus 30:12

So maybe you can't take a census—you just have to do it right, and he didn't do it right. That's a reasonable thesis, or at least maybe that's a theory we can chase.

Gary? When David was a young man, he always inquired of the Lord first. "Should I do this?" And he'd even get a priest to do the Urim and the Thummim and all that other stuff. Yes or no? But he's not even inquiring of the Lord. He's just doing something that pops into his head. Yes. Okay. This is great.

And so there are plenty of things. I am not a moral relativist. I'm very much a moral absolutist. But it doesn't follow from being a moral absolutist that everything is always right and other things are wrong. Circumstances really do matter. There might be a circumstance in which I could slap Zach in the face. I can't think of what it is, but there might be. He's passed out. We've got to wake him up. There might be a circumstance. This isn't a good time to do that. But sometimes you're allowed to do an action under one circumstance but not in another.

So maybe he didn't, and not only is he going ahead, but Joab is physically saying, "Woah, woah, out, time out." But David's in that mode, right, where he's like, "Shut up. I don't wanna hear it. I'm gonna do what I wanna do." Is that possible? Yep. Carl? Yes, absolutely. Okay, good.

So let's pull on that. So what would be going on there? If that's the case, if the purpose of the census is to count not just noses but swords, why would that be a problem? Okay, great. So now we're getting into not just what you do, but really what's going on here—why you're doing it, right? And Carlton is suggesting that maybe the issue was that he's just counting noses because it's just fun to be a bigger king, right, to have a better army, to be arrogant. It's possible. This is all we're doing—this is all speculating, yes.

Kelly, you wanna throw something on there? Yes. Yes. Okay. And I think we move on from here because I think this is the ultimate thing, you guys. Are you allowed to take a census? Yes. There are times where they're commanded to. Are there manners in which you must do it? Yes. But really, what is the motivation?

And it could be there is maybe a motivation of just pride, and I wanna do this, but it's also David has been king for how many years? David has absolutely survived and thrived and been successful because the Lord was with him. Incident after incident after incident, he was constantly in these situations that Kelly mentions, like where Saul's coming around the mountain and David's coming around the mountain. Right here! Saul gets a phone call and he leaves. Absolutely. Endlessly David is succeeding because God is with him. It's never because David is so great. He's always inquiring of the Lord and he's speaking this thing. And then now, you get a little bit of a sense of he's like, "You know what? Hey, Yahweh, thanks so much, but I got it from here. Well, I think I got it from here. How many people do we have?" And he's going to count all his noses and swords.

Perhaps, and I think this is the most likely answer, so that he doesn't have to trust Him anymore. Do you know this feeling? I've been to 9,000 Christian conferences when I was on staff with Crusade, and there was one guy I may have mentioned this to you before—one guy spoke at a conference, and I don't know how many talks I have heard in a conference setting, but the one thing that I remember most vividly of 500 messages is what this guy said: when you are trusting the Lord, you want him to provide for you so that you don't have to trust him anymore. And that made me so mad, and it is so spot on. Right? I just want the money up front because it's so exhausting being dependent on you. It's so like, "I don't like trusting you because I don't really trust you. Can I just have it? Can it just be resolved? Can the solution just come?" He's like, "You want him to provide so you don't have to trust him anymore." And I think that's probably what's going on with David. He's like, "Enough of this. You've been faithful for decades, but just I got it. I want this, and I don't want to trust you anymore." I think that's what's going on here.

The Danger of Conditional Trust

And here's what's so terrifying about that. If that's right, and that's what David is doing wrong, is that not something that I do wrong all the time? Like, don't you just want the money up front? Don't you just want the resolution now? God—I don't know why he's exactly like this, but God loves faith. He has built the salvation of the world on faith. He wants us to trust Him, and when David—I think that David is moving into a place of, "I don't want to trust you anymore because I want to trust in my money, I want to trust in my steel, I don't want to trust you." God is absolutely not having it. Just absolutely not. And he moves with alacrity to clear the table on this. Absolutely not.

And then he offers David three options. So take a look at what he does. No more, no more, we're not doing this. And then he says, "Where are we at?" He says, so they do the count, that's all fine.

David was conscious stricken after he had counted the fighting men, and he said to the Lord, "I have sinned greatly in what I have done. Now, O Lord, I beg you, take away the guilt of your servant. I've done a very foolish thing." — 2 Samuel 24:10

And before David got up the next morning—don't you wish that was the end of it? That'd be great. And we're good here. Thank you, David. Before David got up the next morning, the word of the Lord had come to Gad the prophet, David's seer:

Go and tell David, this is what the Lord says: I am giving you three options. Choose one of them for me to carry out against you. — 2 Samuel 24:12

Okay. First, why do you think he sends someone to talk to David when he so frequently speaks directly to David? Wouldn't you feel like if you had prophetic gifting as David does, you wouldn't need a prophet? Just be like, "Just talk to me." But instead he sends somebody. What's up with that?

Chris: That's a great application of this principle that David has been—if we're right here, David is exercising a lack of faith, and God is gonna bring back, okay, you're gonna have to trust a little bit. We're gonna rebuild this. I think that's a very good answer.

Zach: I was just gonna say there's other evidence of prophets being used to talk to David in moments of great sin. About using Nathan. That's right. To talk to him. So sometimes God speaks straight to David, but this is not a unique thing. God will routinely send other people to David, particularly when the message needs to kind of get through in a pointed way.

Catherine: Somebody else knows what's going on. Yeah, that's a good word.

Lily: Did we already hit your stuff? We're good? Okay, so he does. And then here's the options, verse 13.

So Gad went to David and he said to him:

"Shall there come upon you three years of famine in your land, or three months of fleeing from your enemies while they pursue you, or three days of plague in your land? Now then, think it over and decide how I should answer the one who sent me." — 2 Samuel 24:13

God's like, We're going to judge you. You've three options. Three years of famine, three months of fleeing from your enemies, which, by the way, you know a lot about that. You've done that for years. Or three days of plague. Is it obvious to you what you would pick? What David's response? He only eliminates one option. He says this, look at verse 14.

"David says to Gad, I am in deep distress. Let us fall into the hands of the Lord, for his mercy is great, but do not let me fall into the hands of men." — 2 Samuel 24:14

What is that? What is he eliminating? The three month option's off the table. He's like, I'll cross this one off. It still could be plague. It still could be famine. These are the things that are going to be directed by the Lord, and the Lord sends the plague. I think it's a pretty brilliant response.

What's good and encouraging about that? David has humbled his heart, and I like the fact that just a minute ago, he was putting all his trust in men, right? We're going to count the men that we have to go fight wars, perhaps distancing himself from trusting the Lord. But now he's like, I don't trust people. They're evil. So Lord, I'll just place myself at your mercy. And that shows he's coming back around.

Now, we've only got just a couple of minutes. I'm not going to have time to unpack this. I'm moving quickly because I want you to see something. This is so interesting. Look at verse 15.

"So the Lord sent a plague on Israel from that morning until the end of the time designated, and seventy thousand of the people from Dan to Beersheba died... And when the angel stretched out his hand to destroy Jerusalem, the Lord was grieved because of the calamity and said to the angel who was afflicting the people, 'Enough, withdraw your hand.' And the angel of the Lord was then at the threshing floor of Aruna the Jebusite." — 2 Samuel 24:15-16

Holy smokes, that's a lot of people. It's a horrible plague, right?

God's Justice and Mercy

This is a phenomena that shows up repeatedly in the Bible, where God sends judgment because He is just, and then, or even in the midst of it, He has an emotional response to the people that are suffering. You see it over and over again.

There's this fantastic scene in the book of Judges, where God is so fed up with the fickleness of the people of God. They're just so quick to turn away from Him and to run and to worship false gods again. Finally God gets to the point—you can look this up, chapter eight, nine—God's like, That's it. I'm done, man.

"When I rescued you and called out to you, you went back to the Ammonites, the Amorites, Amalekites, all the Ites, and it's over and over again."

I'm tired of it. No more. We're done. Bring the rain. And the people are so miserable to be under his judgment once again that they cry out and they say, You're right, you're right, you're right. We blew it. Do whatever you think best, but rescue us. And it says that God was moved by their entreaty. God has an emotional response to their suffering.

The same thing with Manasseh. If you guys know Manasseh's story, Manasseh's this little dirtbag. He burns his children alive in this pit, offering his children to Molech, and God puts a hook in his nose and drags him away, and Manasseh, in his misery, is brought to the lowest spot by the judgment of God, and he cries out, and again, God has moved to pity the one that he is judging.

It's what we're seeing happening right here. God is pouring out his wrath, and he is moved to pity because he is endlessly just and he is endlessly gracious. And there is a storm in the heart of God. And right here, at a curiously specific spot, the judgment stops.

The Threshing Floor of Aruna

What's the spot? The threshing floor of Aruna of the Jebusite. This is so interesting. The threshing floor of Aruna of the Jebusite. Go to two Chronicles chapter three. Two Chronicles 3:1. Listen to this. This is so interesting. There are at least three, maybe four things that happen right here on this spot.

"Then Solomon began to build the temple of the Lord in Jerusalem on Mount Moriah, where the Lord had appeared to his father David. And it was on the threshing floor of Aruna the Jebusite, the place provided by David." — 2 Chronicles 3:1

So this space here, Aruna's threshing floor is on Mount Moriah, and Mount Moriah is where they're going to build the temple.

The place where the sacrifice is offered that will save the people from their sins is this same location. And it's one other location. What else happened on Mount Moriah? Abraham. Where Abraham goes and he offers his son Isaac, and God provides a substitute so that Isaac doesn't have to die, so that another one can die in his place, that is Mount Moriah. So there's this literal physical place in the world where one of the clearest prefigurements of the death of the Messiah is Mount Moriah. That's where this happens. And God says:

I myself will provide a lamb.

Then the threshing floor is where this judgment stops, and God's mercy overwhelms His justice. And then the temple is going to be built there. This is the place where the judgment of God will be absorbed so that people can be made safe. And then, there is honestly controversy, and I don't know, right? Do what else happens at or very near that spot? Like, within yards? The crucifixion of Christ. Right?

Now, there is controversy about this. We know that Jesus in the temple, in Jesus' day, that temple is inside the city. It's in Jerusalem, and we know that Jesus was crucified outside the city. But he was crucified right outside the city. Probably Golgotha is, at the very least, on the same mountain range as Mount Moriah. It is that same mount. And it would be less than a mile at best of a different spot, but it might actually be the same place. The walls of the city changed over different times. The location of the temple may have even changed over different times, and we don't know. It's not necessarily the case that Jesus' crucifixion is on the same spot, but it was very, very close to it.

Abraham offering his son, Aruna's the plague stopping there, the building of the temple, and then maybe even at or very close to it, crucifixion of Christ. There is something about this place. This is the physical location where God in His mercy stops the judgment of the people.

The Pattern of David's Life

What's so interesting, I think, is that this whole thing—we've been studying David's life because we want to learn to read narrative, we want to see how the whole thing points to Christ, and it does. The whole story here once again, as we've seen over and over again, there are aspects of David's life, facets of his mode of being, that are curiously like what God would do through Jesus Christ. He is the one who, in his life and in his manner, becomes the template for Messiah, even up to this very last climactic moment where this is the space in David's life at this particular place where God stops the judgment.

And our hope, all of our hope, is that the judgment of God poured out against us, our use, our love of bad things and broken things, would be stopped. Because if we fall into that judgment, all is lost, and we will be destroyed. But he is mercifully and graciously not merely just, but he is also tender and merciful and moved by our suffering. Our great hope is that the true and the greater David, who would come from this time, but has come from ours, will be our protection, that in him your judgment will be arrested.

Blessed are all who take refuge in him.

He does come. Jesus comes. He is—God is a consuming fire, but he's built a space, a place that we, who have no right to be safe, can be made safe in him. And that's ultimately what David is doing for us. Okay? So we gotta stop. Next week, we'll try to recap some of this. We'll probably try to wrap up the story of David. Thank you for your months of kind attention. We'll talk later.