Sermon: Folly and Mercy

Would you take a copy of God's word this morning? We are going to turn open to the book of 2 Samuel. As we're doing so, 2 Samuel 24. If you want to use a pew Bible, it's right there on page 277 in the pew Bible, 277. And this morning, we're looking at 2 Samuel 24:1-17 this week, and then next week we will finish this book. We'll have made our way through 2 Samuel. So this morning, 2 Samuel 24 and looking at verses 1 through 17.

Let's go ahead and we will pray and ask for God's blessing before we read the word and hear it preached this morning.

Father, we thank you for the gift of your word. And even this morning, we seek to quiet our minds. We say to our souls, "Be still,"

and to our spirits to

know the good thing this morning. So we quiet ourselves under the shadow of your wing, and we come to your Son who said, "Come to me, all you who are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest." And so we come resting in him. Lord Sabbath is his name.

And we pray that you would indeed help every soul in this room to rest in Christ this morning, that you would minister to each of us as we have need as only you can do as the sovereign God of heaven and earth. We cry out to you, and we say, "Speak to us, O Lord." And we pray all of this in the strong name of Christ, that good shepherd of the sheep, Jesus. Amen. This morning, 2 Samuel 24:1-17. This is the holy, inerrant, sufficient word of

God. "Again, the anger of the Lord was kindled against Israel, and he incited David against them, saying, 'Go, number Israel and Judah.' So the king said to Joab, the commander of the army, who was with him, 'Go through all the tribes of Israel, from Dan to Beersheba, and number the people, that I may know the number of the people.' But Joab said to the king, 'May the Lord your God add to the people a hundred times as many as they are, while the eyes of

my lord the king still see it. But why does my lord the king delight in this thing?' But the king's word prevailed against Joab and the commanders of the army. So Joab and the commanders of the army went out from the presence of the king to number the people of Israel. They crossed the Jordan and began from Aroer, and from the city that is in the middle of the valley toward Gad, and on to Jazer. Then they came to Gilead, and to Kedesh in the land of the Hittites,

and they came to Dan. And from Dan they went around to Sidon and came to the fortress of Tyre and to all the cities of the Hivites and Canaanites. And they went out to the Negev of Judah at Beersheba. So when they had gone through all the land, they came to Jerusalem at the end of nine months and 20 days. And Joab gave the sum of the numbering of the people to the king. In Israel there were 800,000 valiant men who drew the sword, and the

men of Judah were 500,000. 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 have done. But now, O Lord, please take away the iniquity of your servant, for I have done very foolishly.' When David arose in the morning, the word of the Lord came to the prophet Gad, David's seer, 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."' So Gad came to David and told him, and said to him, 'Shall three years of famine come to you in your land? Or will you flee three months before your foes while they pursue you? Or shall there be three days' pestilence in your land? Now consider and decide what answer I shall return to him who sent me.' 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 on Israel from the morning until the appointed time. And there died of the people from Dan to Beersheba 70,000 men. And when the angel stretched out his hand toward Jerusalem to destroy it, the Lord relented from the calamity and said to the angel who was working destruction among the people, 'It is enough. Now stay your hand.' And the angel of the Lord was by the threshing floor of Araunah the

Jebusite. Then David spoke to the Lord when he saw the angel who was striking the people, and said, 'Behold, I have sinned, and I have done wickedly. But these sheep, what have they done?Please let your hand be against me and against my father's house. Though the grass withers and the flower fades, the word of God is forever. Thanks be to God. Amen.

We have yet another example of David's sin as we come to the end of this book, and we have yet another demonstration of God's mercy as we come to the end of this book, and you need both this morning. All of us are foolish, and our God is merciful. And I want us to see that this morning. David was foolish and sinned. His numbering of Israel was clearly sin. Joab, who was no righteous man, came to him and pleaded with him, "Look, I wish you had 100

times the number of people, but please don't do this thing. Don't count them." Joab saw the sin. David himself will say in verse 10 that he has sinned greatly against the Lord. Gad the prophet will come to David with the judgment of God because David has sinned. God Himself will execute this judgment because David had sinned. Why was it sin to number the soldiers? Well, some will say it's because David conducted a census and there was to be a poll tax.

In Exodus 30, you see such, but that appears to be a one-time event. Don't think that is it. Some believe that David was planning a future military campaign that God had not approved, but there's no such proof of that in the text. I think it is much more straightforward than that. Our first point this morning, the folly of pride. The folly of pride. David numbers the people because he had bought into the lie of self-reliance. He's proud.

Now, David had not always thought this way. He is the same man that wrote Psalm 20 that says, "Some trust in chariots and some in horses, but we trust in the name of the Lord our God. They collapse and fall, but we rise and stand upright." We don't trust in human innovation. We don't trust in numbers. We don't trust in earthly power, but we trust in God. It's with Him that we rise and stand. That was David.

But now he's bought into the lie of self-reliance. Now, it's not wrong to number the people, to do a census. In fact, God will command it at times, as we just spoke about in Exodus 30. God Himself numbers His people. We discussed this last week. He writes every single one of their names in the Lamb's book of life. He encourages elders to know those who they have care for. They have to number them. God Himself keeps rolls.

But David was doing so with wrong motivation. He was trusting in numbers rather than God. Self-reliance. When I was in high school, I played football. I was an offensive lineman, and we had a running back my junior year who was quick. I remember at a practice one night, he took the ball in a play and went quickly through the line and ran about 25 yards, and he came back to the huddle and he said in boast, he said, "I'm so good, I don't even need a line."

And I remember in the huddle, we didn't say a word, just remember making eye contact with everybody, and in the next play, the ball was hiked, he was handed the ball, and we all just stepped aside. And he met every defensive player that evening. And he came limping back to the huddle, and he had a new thing to say. He said, "I need you. I need you."

David became full of himself. He's king of a large nation. He's numbered it from Dan to Beersheba. Verse nine, "In Israel, there were 800,000 valiant men who drew the sword, 500,000 in Judah." The nation had become a force with a mighty army, and that army served David.

Who needs God when you have 1,300,000 valiant men?

This is the foolishness of sin,

especially what we fall into when things are going well. Who needs God when you have a huge retirement account? Who needs God when you've paid off your mortgage? Who needs God when there are doctors, a whole cadre of them that you have that are specialists with experience? Who needs God when you have friends and family members who support you, when you have the ability to speak your way in every situation? You have charisma.And on we could

go. Who needs God when things are going well?

I suspect David was not the only one who had wandered into this folly at this time. In fact, I'm pretty convinced that the entire nation had. The people were now in relative peace. They're united in the land. They seem to have fallen into the same faulty thinking. They were self-sufficient because we're told in verse one that again, the anger of the Lord was kindled against Israel. Again is how the passage begins. They've done it

again,

that they've turned from the Lord again.

They forgot God again. Oh, the foolishness of sin, that they pay Him only lip service when things are going well.

I wonder if you've noticed as we've gone through this book that David seems like he's at his best when he's at his lowest, and at his worst when he is highest.

It's a strange thing that when life is calm, we're most tempted to forget God.

This is the cycle in the Book of Judges, isn't it, that you see over and over. The nation falls into sin. God is bringing judgment upon them. They cry out to God in their distress. He looks upon them with mercy, and He delivers them, and then once they are delivered, they forget Him again, and they fall back into sin, and on we start a new cycle, and then the cycle again, and again. When we are most at ease, we are most susceptible to sin.

We tend to subconsciously or even consciously think that we are self-sufficient when things are going well. Be especially on guard. Be especially in the Word. Be especially in prayer. Be especially watchful of your soul.

The hardest falls come from the greatest heights,

and David falls.

Now, you might have caught the odd verse one. The Lord was angry, so we are told He incited David. So did David actually fall, or was he pushed by God?

There's a parallel account in 1 Chronicles 21, and there we read this: "Then Satan stood against Israel and incited David to number Israel." So in one passage, we have God inciting him. In another passage, we have Satan inciting him. Who was it, God or Satan? Pretty big difference,

and if either one of them incited him, is he responsible?

What we have here is an example of what we call the decretive will of God and the preceptive will of God. God's decree is His eternal ordaining of whatsoever comes to pass. Thus, His decretive will is His providential will, that which occurs. It's hidden. It's secret until it occurs. Whatever so comes to pass is decretive will. His preceptive will is revealed. It's known. It's found in God's precepts, His commands, His moral law, what He says He curses, what He

says He blesses, His warnings, His promises. "Do this. Don't do that. I bless this. I curse this." We can read it.

It's revealed. You know it. Both are in the text. Preceptive will, David knew he was to trust in the Lord. He knew he was to look to the Lord. He knew he was to be a man of prayer. He was to be dependent upon God, God's preceptive will. But we also see His decretive will. God ordains. He decreed that Satan incite David to number the people. He ordains what actually comes to pass. Scripture presents both truths clearly. Satan incites David, yet God

remains sovereign over even an event like this. God does not tempt David nor force him to sin. David willingly chooses evil when presented with it, yet even this rebellion falls within God's providence.

The clearest example of this is the cross itself"Lawless men," Peter says in Acts 2, "Lawless men crucified Christ. They freely did so, yet Christ was delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God," Peter says in Acts 2.

Either God is sovereign or he is not. If there's even one molecule that he is not sovereign over, then he's not sovereign.

But the scripture leaves us with no corner of reality outside God's sovereign rule. Sovereign over Satan, sovereign over incitements, even over sin. But make no mistake, this was David's folly. God did not tempt him, Satan did, and David chose.

Second, we see the pain of conviction. The pain of conviction. After Joab comes and reports to him the number of people, we read 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 have done. But now, O Lord, please take away the iniquity of your servant, for I have done very foolishly.'"

God's mercy comes to bear upon David. I love the language of it, but David's heart struck him. He has a pained conscience. David was immediately struck in the heart that this was sin, and I committed it.

Already in the text, we begin to see a pattern that will culminate in Christ. Sin committed, judgment deserved, mercy intervening, the wrath halted by God himself.

David is now low, and he's at his best.

How can David be called a man after God's own heart? He's such a sinner. Such a sinner.

At the very least, it's what we see here.

First, his conscience is tender. This has to be one of the chief marks of a person who has come to God through Christ in saving faith, is that you have a tender conscience.

But we often think the greatest Christians are those who sin the least. No. It's those who repent the most.

He sins. When he realizes it, it's distasteful to him. He hates it. His conscience is struck. "I sinned against God."

A believer cannot live comfortably and indefinitely without conviction over sin. Where the Spirit dwells, conviction over sin eventually comes because God's people hate sin, because sin is opposed to God.

But we do it.

A difference is that when they are convicted of sin, those after God's own heart grieve it. They hate it.

Friends, a pained conscience is a sign of living faith.

It's not a sign of the absence of faith, it's a sign of living faith.

There's a second sign of a man after God's own heart, and that David owned his sin. "I have sinned greatly," he says. He doesn't excuse it. "I was just trying to see, Lord, how much you have actually blessed us as a nation so we could give you all the more thanksgiving." He doesn't try and blame shift. "Lord, I didn't actually do it. Joab and the commanders went out and counted all of the people."

No, when his conscience was pained, his response was to own his sin. Owned it.

As I pastor, I find myself much less concerned with those who fall into sin than I am concerned for those who never seem to fall into sin.

Why? Because all do.

And those who never seem to fall into sin do, they just never own it. They never confess it.

A spouse who never asks his or her husband or wife for forgiveness is not strong, they're weak in godlinessAnd faith.

A child who never asks their parents for forgiveness is not obedient, but disobedient to God

because all sin. The friendship that never has confession and asking for forgiveness and granting forgiveness within it is not an honest friendship because all sin.

Own it.

Some say, "Well, we don't ask for forgiveness in our family.

We simply apologize."

Accidents deserve apologies.

Sin demands confession and forgiveness. I'm sorrys are not good enough.

David, "I have sinned greatly. Forgive my sin."

Notice the third thing, David knows where to turn.

He has a tender conscience, he owns his sin, and he knows where to turn with it. He doesn't wallow in his sin, he doesn't mope in his sin, he doesn't try to overcome his sin with acts of righteousness, he turns. "But now, O Lord," he says, as he turns to God, humbly turns to Him, he pleads, "please take away the iniquity in your servant, for I have done foolishly. I'm your servant. I'm making a request, please."

He knows that more than he needs relief from the consequences, more than he needs covering over his embarrassment with Joab and the nation, he needs more than anything else, God's cleansing mercy. "Take my iniquity away. The barrier that I've erected between you and I. The filth that clings to me, take it."

He turns to the only one who can deal with it, the Lord.

Which leads to our overall third point, the greatness of mercy. The greatness of mercy.

God hears David's cry. So in the morning, he sends Gad, the seer, David's seer, the prophet, to him, and he gives him three options. There are ramifications for sin. "David, you can choose either three years of famine, or three months of fleeing from your enemies, or three days of disease in the land, pestilence. It's your choice."

David knows God to be merciful.

And notice the three options were three different time periods, three years, three months, three days, but David isn't focused on the duration. A long season can be a sweet season with God. A short season can be a horrific season without God. For David, the time doesn't matter. In fact, the actual judgments themselves don't matter to him. What matters to him is the primary agent of those judgments. In the first, it's the weather. In the second, it's the foreign nations.

In the third, it's God.

So he tells God in verse 14, "I'm in great distress, but the decision is easy," because he knows this God to be merciful. He says, "Let us fall into the hand of the Lord, for His mercy is great, but let us not fall into the hand of man." That's his choice. His choice is God.

It's a turn of events, isn't it?

He's being disciplined because he did not choose God before, and now that he has been brought low and brought to his senses, he realizes the only thing he can choose is God.

And God shows up as He does over and over with mercy.

David is about, with the nation, to experience God's judgment because of his sin, and yet he says of his Lord that His mercy is great because it is.

Dale Ralph Davis said it well. I'm going to quote from himHe said David's assumptions are astounding. His words in verse 14 breathe not only necessary resignation, but boundless consolation. See how well he knows his God. In his crises, his theology seems to come out almost by reflex action. Is this not as it should be in believing experience? Must you not have your best theology for your darkest moments? And in the disasters and sins of life, is there a kinder

place to fall than into the hand of Yahweh? David says, "Let us fall into the hand of the Lord, for His mercy is great."

I've said this over and over to you over the last couple of years, what David knows here in the text. As God's people, we're in good hands. We're in the best of hands.

Merciful hands.

There's no better place to be, and David understands this. He knows God is merciful. "His mercy is great," he says. How great?

It's infinite.

You can't measure its height. You can't measure its depth. You can't measure its breadth. You can't measure its length. God is merciful. And it's not like a garment that He puts on, an attribute that He takes on and takes off like a piece of clothing. Ah, He was merciful this moment. Ah, now He's taken it off. He's not merciful. God is merciful.

You remember in Exodus 34, when He describes Himself...

You got to listen when God says who He is. He says of Himself, "The Lord, the Lord." Speaking of Himself. "The Lord, the Lord." What's the first thing He says of Himself? "The Lord, the Lord, merciful and gracious." Merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin. I'm merciful, abounding in it.

And we see it in the text in bright colors.

The angel of destruction afflicts the nation with pestilence, and God, we're told in verse 16, restrains the angel before it stretches out its hand toward Jerusalem and says, "It's enough. Now stay your hand."

They were deserving of death, deserving of His wrath, deserving of condemnation. It's enough. Merciful.

Merciful God is the very foundation of the gospel.

David is an object of God's love. The people of Israel in the text are an object of God's love. God loves David. God loves the people in the nation at this time. God loves us. Why?

Not because you're lovely. Not because you are intelligent.

Not because you are good, because you are not.

But because He is merciful. He's merciful.

This is going to offend some of you. It shouldn't offend you.

You're a foolish sinner. You. You, you, you, you, you, you. You are a foolish sinner.

And there is a great God of mercy.

God who is merciful to sinners.

A God who sent His Son into the world for sinners. A God who sent His Son to live for sinners. A God who sent His Son to die for sinners. A God who sent His Son to be buried for sinners, raised on the third day for sinners, who even now intercedes at the right hand for sinners. You are a foolish sinner.

And there is a merciful God who loves sinners.

You cannot and you never will be self-sufficientYou need a merciful God yesterday, today, and forever.

And here's the good news. You got one.

It's David's God.

It's Jesus Christ's God.

It's your God, a merciful God.

I'm going to close with just a quote from Spurgeon. "Remember, sinner,

it is not thy hold of Christ that saves thee. It is Christ. It is not thy joy in Christ that saves thee. It is Christ. It is not even faith in Christ, though that is the instrument. It is Christ's blood and merits. Therefore, look not to thy hope, but to Christ, the source of thy hope. Look not to thy faith, but to Christ, the author and finisher of thy faith. And if thou doest that, 10,000 devils cannot throw thee down." And I would only add,

not 10,000 sins can throw thee down. You have a merciful God.

Look to Him.

You need Him.

And you have Him if you want Him.

Let me pray for us.

Oh, Father, we're so thankful that you are a merciful God to sinners such as us.

Your mercy is infinite.

For our sin is great, we say with David, and we are so very foolish.

I thank you for the gift of your Son, a Savior for sinners. I pray that every single soul in this room know the rest that comes in hiding in Christ, of being clothed with the blood of Christ,

of having imputed to them the righteousness of Christ,

of being an heir with Christ, of knowing the mercy that is only found in Christ.

May we truly have rest as we come to Him. May it be true of every single one of us foolish sinners, apart from that mercy. It's in the strong name of Christ Jesus we pray. Amen.