Today on Summit Life with J.D.
Greer. If you only obey Jesus when he makes sense to you, then he is not your Lord, he is your advisor. Obeying God only when he makes sense to you is not obedience, it's agreement. So that's the question, is Jesus your Lord or is he your advisor? Thanks for joining us today for Summit Life with Pastor J.D. Greer.
I'm your host, Molly Vidovitch. Today Pastor J.D. focuses on a chapter that frankly many of us might find confusing, if not downright offensive. By walking through King David's mysterious census and the massive punishment that follows, Pastor J.D. deals with one of the biggest obstacles many people have to trusting in God.
You see, deep down we're not really sure he's a good person, that he's really there and cares. If you feel like God is less loving and forgiving and more vindictive and cruel, this obscure story might just change your perspective. This is the first part of the last sermon in this teaching series, so be sure to get caught up in time for the grand finale on Monday by visiting our website, jdgreer.com.
Right now, let's join Pastor J.D. in 2 Samuel chapter 24. Today, we're bringing our series on David to a close, and we're going to end it on one of those passages in the Bible that most people don't quite know what to do with. You know, for all of us, a lot of us, the Old Testament as a whole is kind of difficult.
For many of us, it can even be an obstacle to trust in God. I mean, Jesus seems to be somebody like we can jive with. You know, he's full of love and tenderness and mercy and forgiveness, and he likes to be kind to little kids.
And he's always looking out for the one who's outcast. But the Old Testament God, well, that God seems, you know, kind of vengeful sometimes, spiteful, full of judgment. It's like God in his middle school years or something, or he's cranky.
God before he goes through a PR makeover and reintroduces himself to the world is Jesus. Well, today's story in 2 Samuel 24 is one of those Old Testament stories that makes people feel that way. But what I hope to show you is that this story is not only the perfect ending to the story of David.
It also shows you that the Jesus who's gonna show up on the pages of the New Testament is the same God that we see interacting with Israel in the Old. I gave this message the title, I still haven't found what I'm looking for, inspired by one of the greatest songs on one of the greatest albums of all time. Some of you know this song because you grew up in the 80s like me when music and culture in general were at their pinnacle. Some of you know it because a lion sang it in Sing Two a couple of years ago.
Either way, it's very familiar with it. A lot of us love it. Bono, who was the writer of this song, called this, he called it a secular gospel-based song. His words, gospel-based song with a restless spirit. If you remember the music video that went along with that song, back in my day they always made music videos to go along with these things.
If you remember it, Bono was walking around downtown Las Vegas singing the song to complete strangers, which makes me wonder if that's what Pastor Vance does out in Las Vegas too as an outreach strategy. I gave this final message in our series that title because that's how the author of 1 and 2 Samuel concludes his two-volume anthology of David's life. These stories in 1 and 2 Samuel, in one sense, they've taken us in one gigantic circle.
Let me show you what I mean. 2 Samuel 24, if you've got your Bible, look there, and let me begin in verse 1. Again, the anger of the Lord was kindled against Israel, and he incited David against them, saying, Go, number Israel and Judah.
Specifically, go count the men in the army and find out how strong we are. Verse 3, but Joab, the commander of Israel's army, said to the king, May the Lord your God add to the people a hundred times as many as they are. But why does my Lord the King delight?
That's a key word that we're going to come back to. Why does he delight in this thing? Joab, throughout these stories, doesn't normally play good guy. Joab is the one, you might recall, who takes people into the back alley and stabs them in the stomach. This is from a movie.
He'd be the guy severing the horse head, leaving it in people's beds and having them sleep with the fishes, that kind of guy. But even Joab, the villain, even Joab knows this is wrong. King David, he says, this is a senseless census, but David wants it, and he's the king, so he forces it through. Jump down to verse 10. But David's heart struck him after he had numbered the people. And David said to the Lord, I have sinned greatly in what I've done.
When David arose in the morning, the word of the Lord came to the prophet Gad, saying, Go and say to David, Thus says the Lord, Three things I offer you, choose one of them, that I may do it to you. Verse 13, shall three years of famine come to you in your land? Option one.
Or will you flee three months before your foes, while they pursue you? Option two. Option one, famine. Option two, foes. Or option three, shall there be three days pestilence, plague in your land? Now consider and decide what answer I shall return, Gad says to him, God, who sent me.
This is like the worst genie experience ever. Choose one of these three terrible options, and David is like, Is none of the above an option? And Gad, speaking on behalf of God, says, No, you have to choose one. Verse 14, Then David said to Gad, I am in great distress. Let us fall into the hand of the Lord, for his mercy is great. But let me not fall into the hand of man. So the Lord sent a pestilence, his choice, a plague on Israel from the morning until the appointed time. And there died of the people from Dan to Beersheba on that one day, 70,000 men. There are three questions I have.
I would assume many of you have them too when I read this passage. Question number one is, why was what David did a sin? And why was it wrong? I mean, get an account.
Sounds like good organization to me. Why was this such a sin? Which leads to the second question. How was what God did in response to that sin, how was that fair? I mean, God struck down 70,000 people with the plague. They're not even the ones who did it. David's the one who did it. How is that fair? All David did was count the people, which again, looks to most of us like responsible leadership. How is it fair for God to respond that way? Lastly, third question, why does the author end the story of David this way?
Why is the last chapter, why is this the last chapter in the David saga? Okay, here we go. Here's number one. Why was this taking a census? Why was it a sin?
Now again, just getting an account. That just seems like responsible management. We all do it if you're an employer.
If you're a dad, you know how many kids you have. This just seems like responsible management. What was the sin in it?
Or at least the sin that warranted such a punishment. I'm gonna give you an explanation for why it's wrong, okay? So relax. But I actually wanna get on a little bit of a soapbox before I do. I don't do this often, but I just think what I'm about to say needs to be said. It's wrong because God told him not to do it.
Full stop. You see, I say that because we got this deal in modern society and it even exists in the church, I hear it a lot, where we feel like if we don't see the wrong in something, then it cannot possibly be wrong. Tim Keller notes that our society determines what is right and wrong based on two questions. Number one, do I wanna do it? And number two, does it hurt anybody? And if the answer to the first question is yes, I want to do it, and the answer to the second question is no, it doesn't hurt anybody as far as I can tell, then it cannot possibly be wrong.
Is sex outside of marriage okay? Well, you wanna do it? Yes. Does it hurt anybody? No.
Doesn't seem to. Well, then go for it. Is it okay for me to leave my spouse for this younger one? Well, is that what you want? Yes.
Is it illegal? No. Are you really hurting anybody when you do that?
Well, not in ways they can't overcome. Well, then you're free to do that. Can I marry somebody of the same sex? Well, is that what I want? Yes. Does that hurt anybody?
Not that I can see. Do I wanna choose a different gender than the one that God assigned to me in my body? Yes. Does that hurt anybody?
No. Well, then it's my choice, and it cannot possibly be wrong. But see, at the end of the day, what's wrong is wrong because God said it's wrong.
Hear me, it's true, listen. It is true that when God declares something wrong, it's not arbitrary. It's because ultimately it's harmful for his creation, and often you and I can see that. But the problem with going through life evaluating moral choices based on whether you think it does or does not hurt somebody is that it assumes God-like knowledge. We can see certain obvious physical damages from certain sins, right? We all know stabbing somebody is wrong because it leaves somebody wailing in pain and a pool of blood on the street. So stabbing somebody goes pretty clearly in our wrong category.
But surely we recognize that some of the worst damages caused by our actions are subtle and non-immediate. Every parent I know struggles to get their grade school kid, for example, to not be on that wretched iPad so much. But the kid thinks, well, what's wrong with what I'm doing? I enjoy this. Watching YouTube videos on the iPad for 11 hours straight, that's not hurting anybody.
I don't feel tired at night when I got the iPad beside my bed, so I don't even need to go to bed. What's wrong with only eating Oreos at every meal? They make me happy. This is me talking now, by the way, okay? I feel satisfied.
In fact, right after I eat a sleeve full of Oreos, I feel awesome. We parents recognize that there are bigger and more important things happening in our child's development than the gratification of their immediate needs. So the question is, who is best to determine what humanity really needs?
Is it us or is it our creator? We look back 100 years ago at what our grandparents, great-grandparents did, and we're like, what's wrong with them? I guarantee you our grandkids and great-grandkids are gonna say the same things about us.
To act like we know what is best for ourselves and a society based on our limited knowledge is the height of pride. Parents, I know you get that. I remember when my son was three years old. I'm like, listen, I know, I know, I know it looks like those little slits in the wall were made for a metal fork, but they are not. Do not stick a fork in the electric outlet. Why, Dad?
Well, son, at the subatomic level, there are tiny particles called electrons that jump between orbits that create an alternating current that travels through this wire that, if it enters your body, it will disrupt your central nervous system and burn your skin. Oh, thanks, Dad. Now I see the wisdom, and now I will obey. That conversation never happened in my house. One day Adam might understand all that, but for now I just say, don't touch that.
Why? Because I'm your daddy, and I love you, and at this point I know more than you. Here is a simple thought experiment, okay?
I would ask all of you. What's greater, the gap between my three-year-old's understanding and mine, or the gap between my understanding and God's? I would say it's between mine and God's.
And that means that there are gonna be things that he says that I trust because he's the one that says them. If you only obey Jesus when he makes sense to you, then he is not your Lord, he is your advisor. Obeying God only when he makes sense to you is not obedience, it's agreement. So that's the question, is Jesus your Lord or is he your advisor? Have you invited God to submit his suggestions to you for your consideration, or have you submitted yourself to him because, well, he's God, and he reigns, and he knows what is best. Okay, that is the end of my soapbox.
I think I should actually get a little soapbox up here and stand up on it so you know when I'm doing stuff like that. We call them gospel partners because that's exactly what they do. They're actually partnering alongside us to help make the gospel known around the globe. This month, we're sending each of our faithful givers a copy of Exalting Jesus in First and Second Samuel, which is a commentary co-written by Pastor JD. This ministry couldn't exist without our gospel partners, and it's always a privilege to say thank you with our specially curated featured resource each month. To give a one-time gift or to join with us as a regular monthly gospel partner, call us right away.
The number is 866-335-5220, or you can find out more information and sign up online at jdgrier.com. Now let's get back to today's teaching. Once again, here's Pastor JD. So it's a sin because God told him not to do it, but are there discernible reasons why God regarded this census to be a sin? The problem appears to be with David's motivations. In and of itself, again, taking a census is not wrong. In fact, did you know the fourth book of your Bible, the fourth book of your Bible is named for a census. It's called Numbers.
Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers. God had commanded Moses to count all the fighting men, so clearly there's nothing inherently wrong with getting a count. The problem, again, is with David's motivations. You see how in verse three it said that David delighted in this? Even Joab, even Joab is like, why does my Lord the King delight here? Joab could see that this was about David's pride.
If you're taking notes, I want you to write down three things that make this thing wrong. The census was wrong because it was about, A, pride. In those days, the size of a king's army was the measure of his stature.
It's like for somebody today, what kind of school they got into, how much money they make, what kind of house they live in, what kinds of circles they run in, or who comes to their parties, who has them on speed dial, who is in their contacts and their iPhone. David is looking for a validation of his value, and that comes from the size of your army. Second, a king's army in those days was his security. It guaranteed that you would be safe against an attack. Lastly, a big army for a king in those days meant aggressiveness. You don't assess your army unless you're thinking about using it.
You want to know what you can afford to go and conquer. Scholars point out, by the way, that this whole chapter has a violent, oppressive feel to it. In chapter 20, we find out that David had started to use forced labor to take the census. In other words, David has instituted slavery. Here we've got David's, God's representative, now enslaving people and building a big army to go out and conquer.
This is militarism with a view toward violence. So this was a sin because it represented David, and Israel, replacing God with an army as their source of identity and security, and because it represented a military buildup with a view toward conquest. Now, before we move on to our second question about the fairness of how God responds, I think it does present a question that you and I ought to consider, and that is, what is it that you and I are delighting in?
If this is so much of a sin to God, we ought to ask it about ourselves. What's my standing army? What is your identity, security, and happiness? What's the army size that you're measuring to find identity and security like David was finding in this army?
And I gotta be honest. When I read how it was a sin for David to count the army, the first thing I think of is what that means for how easily it is for me as a pastor to focus on numbers. Because, see, the size of a church, for a pastor, the size of a church can be a kind of identity, a kind of security, a kind of happiness.
Now, we have good reasons to count, okay? It can help us plan for the future, know how big our facilities should be, also be a way of praising God for what he's doing here, but sometimes, especially for me, maybe not for you, but I would say especially for me out of everybody here right now, that can become the same sin that David committed because I am delighting in that more than I do God. Jesus has sent his disciples out on a mission once, a mission trip, and they came back that evening just stoked at how much power they had over the demons.
And Jesus, understanding the temptation of Christian leaders, said to these disciples, these future Christian leaders, he warned them, do not rejoice that the demons are subject to you. Do not rejoice in how many people are listening to you. Do not rejoice in how effective you are. You rejoice that your names are written down in heaven. In other words, you rejoice that you know God and that he knows you. That's your delight. That ought to be your identity, your security, and all of your happiness because the rest of it is just a detail.
So again, here's the question. What are you delighting in? What thought about you, about what you have, or about what you are, what makes your heart soar just a little bit? Is it how you look? Is it how much money you made last year? Is it an award that you got recently? Is it your SAT scores or where you got into college? Is it what you see when you look in the mirror? Is it how often you're cited in academic papers by other experts in your field?
How many boys pay attention to you? What is it? Beware anything that takes the focus of your identity, security, and happiness off of God because this is wicked in God's eyes. It is the sin behind the other sins.
It is idolatry. Here's the second question. How was this fair? How was what God did in response to this sin, killing 70,000 people with the plague, how was that fair?
Y'all, there are at least three things in this story that make all this seem really unfair to me, and one of them I haven't even pointed out to you yet. It was in verse one. Some of you noticed it when I read it. Who moved David to count Israel?
Who did it? You see verse one? And the Lord, he incited David against them, saying, go and number Israel and all of Judah. So God is the one who did it. God moves David. God moves David to do something, and then he blames him for it.
Y'all see the problem with that? If God's the one who moved David to do it, then why would he punish him for it? Here's what makes this verse even more complicated. In 1 Chronicles, Chronicles is like a parallel account of what happens in Samuel.
So it gives a parallel account of the story. Here's what it says in 1 Chronicles. Then Satan stood against Israel and incited David to number Israel.
Wait, what? Samuel says God did it. The author of Chronicles says that Satan did it. By the way, contradictions like these are what make skeptics like Bart Ehrman over at UNC say that there is no way the Bible could possibly be the inspired word of God because how could one author say that God moved David to do something and another author say that it was Satan that moved David to do it, and both of them be speaking under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit? Wouldn't that be the worst kind of contradiction, confusing Satan and God on something? But y'all see, it's not a contradiction.
It's one of those mysteries of sovereignty. The Bible teaches that God sometimes allows us to fall prey to our own evil desires or even to the temptations of Satan. God is not the one doing the tempting. He's not the one that's causing us to do it. It's our own sinful desires that are doing it, but God is sovereign over that in that he allowed the temptation to happen because he intends to use our disobedience as a part of his plan.
God is sovereign, but we're still responsible. My friend David Platt tells a story of trying to go somewhere, to preach when he got stuck in the Atlanta airport, that horrible place where all my dreams go to die. By the way, I am pretty sure I can't prove this from scripture, but I'm pretty sure that when somebody dies here in Raleigh, if you're going to heaven, it's a direct flight. If you're going the other direction, you're gonna route through Atlanta.
I'm pretty sure about that. Anyway, David Platt, my friend, gets stuck because Delta, he says, lost track of one of their planes. David said, I'm not sure how you lose track of something as big as an airliner. I mean, I've misplaced my keys a few times. I've even lost my truck once in a parking lot.
I spent an hour looking for it, but I am proud to say that I have never misplaced a 747. So David calls me. That's where this story, I intersect with this story. David calls me, and he's like, man, because I'm at the same event that he's going to.
He's like, man, I cannot get there. You gotta preach. So I pulled together a message, and here's the thing. I had to stand up for all these people and deal with the disappointment that I'm not David Platt, and I stand up there, and I preach this message, and y'all, here's the thing. God really used it. I mean, people got saved, rededicated their lives to Christ, slain in the spirit.
Somebody got raised from the dead. I mean, not all that, but it was clearly, it was clearly a God-ordained night, and David later, he says, it is clear that God wanted you to preach that night, not me, and that God was somehow in the mysteriously missing airliner. God was sovereign, and I'm grateful for it, but I still spent a few hours on the phone with Delta holding them responsible.
God is sovereign, but Delta is responsible. Does that all make sense? So that's what's happening in that first phrase.
The harder aspects of the question, is it fair, is that, like I pointed out, it seems like others are being punished for David's sin, and B, the punishment seems to far exceed the crime. So a few things to remember here. First, this text indicates that Israel was not, in fact, innocent, okay? This one we'll do here in a minute, a little bit heady, so just stay with me, okay? You got your theological big boy pants on. Hang with me.
I'll give you like four and a half minutes on this. Israel was not, in fact, innocent. Did you see how verse one opened? Again, the anger of the Lord was kindled against Israel. Who was God angry at?
Israel. What was going on in David's heart was also going on in all of their hearts. You with me?
What was going on? It was also going on in all of their hearts. David's sin might be the occasion of the punishment, but they were all participants in some way.
Hang with me. Sometimes when we see something bad happen to what looks like an innocent person, we say that God is being unjust, and that is true. Sometimes the punishment doesn't seem to fit the crime, but in another sense, hear me, the Bible makes clear that the whole human race is under the condemnation of death because of a rebellion against God that we all enthusiastically participated in.
All of us, every member of the human race, have chosen to walk away from God and to go our own way, so that means there's nobody who can truly point the finger at God and say this is unfair. As we near the end of our look at King David's life, we were reminded today that King David, for all of his strengths, was far from perfect. But thankfully, he points us to the greater king, Jesus, who is perfect and who laid down his life for us. He is our ultimate hope.
He is our peace, and he is our savior. This is Summit Life, the Bible teaching ministry of Pastor J.D. Greer. Pastor J.D., some books are designed to be read in an evening or at least cover to cover over a few settings. This one we are offering to our listeners this month, however, is not, right?
Yeah, yeah, that's right. It's technically a commentary. Think of it as a reference book. Now, I will say, I think it's readable. The same kind of way that you hear us teaching Summit Life is the way this book is written. I've used commentaries like this one as a part of my quiet time.
Sometimes I really want to press into a book. So I think you could find it that way. But if you're teaching in any way, whether it's just teaching your kids or doing Bible study or something, it's a great resource to have to say, how can I make sure I get this passage right and tie it into the larger theme? So anyway, we'd love to be able to give you a copy of this. It goes along with The Life of David. It'll show you some of the stuff you can't cover in a message.
It'll help you go deeper. You can reserve your copy today at jdgreer.com. Thanks, J.D. To get your copy of this volume, co-written by Pastor J.D., give your gift of $35 or more to support this ministry by calling 866-335-5220. That's 866-335-5220.
Or give online at jdgreer.com. I'm Molly Vidovitch, and I hope you have a great weekend gathering with your church family. Make sure to tune in next time as we wrap up the final teaching in our Life of David series. We'll see you next time here on Summit Life with J.D. Greer. Today's program was produced and sponsored by JD Greer Ministries.
