Trust in God rather than men

Trust in God rather than men

Goshen/Study led by brother David/ 14/10/11

Our study was focused on the incident where King David sinned by ordering a census to be taken of all the fighting men in Israel, resulting in God’s wrath being poured upon Israel. Even though Joab and the generals protested to the king against this plan, King David overruled them, and brought great trouble in Israel. God gave King David a choice whether to accept as judgment, 3 years of famine, 3 months of being overrun by enemies or 3 days of plague. David chose the 3 days of plague and 70,000 died in Israel before God withheld further punishment because of His mercy, and David built an altar and sacrificed a burnt offering to the Lord. It is amazing that the Lord sent fire from heaven to consume the sacrifice! Eventually, the threshing floor which David purchased to worship the Lord became the site of the future temple built by King Solomon.

Lessons from the study:-

·       “Why was David’s action of counting his fighting men considered a sin?” Both the passages in 1 Chronicles 21 and 2 Samuel 24 do not explain why he sinned, although the sin was already obvious to Joab and the commanders. Our main conclusion here was that in ordering the census, David was showing that he trusted more in man than in God. The pagan kingdoms of the world prided themselves in their vast armies, but compared to the mighty, living God, it was no comparison at all. In his younger years, when David came up against the mighty giant Goliath, he declared bravely, “You come against me with sword and spear and javelin, but I come against you in the name of the LORD Almighty, the God of the armies of Israel, whom you have defied. This day the LORD will deliver you into my hands, and I’ll strike you down and cut off your head. This very day I will give the carcasses of the Philistine army to the birds and the wild animals, and the whole world will know that there is a God in Israel. All those gathered here will know that it is not by sword or spear that the LORD saves; for the battle is the LORD’s, and he will give all of you into our hands.”2 Samuel 17:45-47. The key point is in the last verse: for the battle is the LORD’s. It is not great armies or technology or weapons that can save us, but the Lord Himself, who is far greater than any of these things. In recent times, we are reminded of man’s vulnerability in the tragic sinking of the Titanic, the greatest ship of the time ever built of which man boasted “even God Himself could not sink this ship”.

·      What is the significance of the three choices? Which would we choose? The first option was a three-year famine, which could mean a slow and lingering death from hunger for many. The second option was three months of being overrun by the enemy. David of all people, being a man of war,  knew how cruel invading armies could be. The third option was plague, death by disease. David’s choice was probably the most merciful for the people, as a quick death meant less prolonged suffering and also no violence.

·      Was there any significance in the number of Israelites who died i.e. 70,000? In a way, it seems to be God’s way of telling David. Don’t trust in numbers. No matter how great an army, God can easily take it away. Many years later, the Assyrian army found this out when God went into their camp during a siege against Jerusalem and 185,000 of them died. 

·      “Why was it that David’s sin with Bathsheba was judged personally (on him and his household” while David’s sin of the census was judged nationally (on all the people of Israel)? This incident reminds us that the sin of a nation’s leaders can result in terrible judgment for the whole nation. It is said that the terrible bonfires in Australia known as Black Saturday occurred in the year that abortion was legalized. In America, where abortion is rampant and prayers have been taken out of schools, floods, tornadoes, and hurricanes have begun to abound more and more. On the other hand, when a country’s leader repents and turns to God for help, great miracles have happened. England experienced this in both World War I and II. When the head of the church, the king of England called for a national day of prayer, things changed miraculously in the battlefield, and England, from a losing position succeeded to incredibly overturn the odds and vanquish the enemy.

·      “Why the threshing floor?” The author of the Chronicles took great trouble to record in detail the facts concerning the threshing floor and the purchase of it by King David. During the time of Nehemiah, when the Chronicles were probably written, there were Arabs who challenged the validity of the Jews’ ownership of the temple grounds. Hence, some theologians believe that it was important to show how the threshing floor was acquired in the historical records as a testimony to validate the ownership of the temple location by the Jews. In his sermon, Pastor Daniel also went into great length to explain the spiritual significance of the threshing floor, of judgment (burning up of the unwanted chaff), of separation (separating the chaff from the wheat), and blessing (the finished process would bring food and revenue).