I invite you this morning to turn with me and your Bibles to the book of 1 Chronicles. 1 Chronicles chapter 21. You will find that on page 410 in most of the Pew Bibles. There's a parallel account in 2 Samuel chapter 24 that we will make a few references to this morning, just so you're aware that there's another account. It's not identical. There's different references and different importance. But in the book of Chronicles, we need to know the reason this book was written was to remind the remnant of Judah that had been carried away to exile and had come back to Jerusalem. The chronicler wanted to remind them of the continuing validity, the continuing truth of God's promise to King David, the covenant he made with David. He refers to it in chapter 17 of this first book and he summarizes it there in verses 11 and 12. where the word of the Lord came and said, When your days are over and you go to be with your fathers, speaking of David, I will raise up your offspring to succeed you, one of your own sons, and I will establish his kingdom. He is the one who will build a house for me, and I will establish his throne forever. That's the promise that the people of God in the kingdom under David knew, and they hoped in, and they trusted in. But when we come to our text this morning in chapter 21, we come to a point when David is at the peak of his power and has yet to hand over the kingdom to Solomon. At a time when it seems just that these covenant promises are about to be fulfilled in his son, that we find instead the kingdom of Israel starting to come apart. And even in the days that follow, as Solomon did sit on the throne, and as Solomon did build the temple of God, The kingdom was already starting to unravel. And upon his death it was ran into Israel to the north that was carried away by the Assyrians and Judah to the south that was taken into captivity in Babylon. And so the people that had come back looked back on that history and had to think this promise had failed. And the writer, the author wants them to know and us to know that no, it did not fail. It had not pointed to Solomon. It had pointed to David's greater son, who was to them yet to come, for us, who has come. The King of kings, the Lord of lords. Whose rule will have no end and who is building an eternal house within which God will dwell with his people, his church. The promise pointed to the Messiah, to the Son of God who would come into the world in the flesh, to Jesus Christ. This story today, as we read in 21, is a story that points us to Him. It points us to His work. As it depicts for us how the Lord's perfect justice that had been provoked by prideful sin and that was restrained by His great mercy was finally and at last satisfied by costly sacrifice. And as I read God's Word this morning to you from chapter 21, in its entirety, you'll note that three points of this sermon come from three distinct settings and conversations in this event. Three different dialogues, if you will, that unfold this truth to us this morning. So hear now the word of God from 1 Chronicles chapter 21, beginning in verse 1. Satan rose up against Israel and incited David to take a census of Israel. So David said to Joab and the commanders of the troops, Go and count the Israelites from Beersheba to Dan, then report back to me, so that I may know how many there are. But Joab replied and made the Lord multiply his troops a hundred times over. My lord the king, are they not all my lord's subjects? Why does my lord want to do this? Why should he bring guilt on Israel? The king's word, however, overruled Joab. So Joab left and went throughout Israel and then came back to Jerusalem. Joab reported the number of the fighting men to David. In all Israel, there were 1,100,000 men who could handle a sword, including 470,000 in Judah. But Joab did not include Levi and Benjamin in the numbering because the king's command was repulsive to him. This command was also evil in the sight of God, and so he punished Israel. Then David said to God, I have sinned greatly by doing this. Now I beg you, take away the guilt of your servant. I have done a very foolish thing. The Lord said to Gad, 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. So Gad went to David and said to him, This is what the Lord says. Take your choice. Three years of famine. Three months of being swept away before your enemies with their swords overtaking you. or three days of the sword of the Lord, days of plague in the land with the angel of the Lord ravaging every part of Israel. Now then, decide how I should answer the one who sent me. David said to Gad, I am in deep distress. Let me fall into the hands of the Lord, for his mercy is very great. But do not let me fall into the hands of men. So the Lord sent a plague on Israel, and 70,000 men of Israel fell dead. And God sent an angel to destroy Jerusalem. But as the angel was doing so, the Lord saw it and was grieved because of the calamity, and said to the angel who was destroying the people, Enough! Withhold your hand! The angel of the Lord was then standing at the threshing floor of Arunah, the Jebusite. David looked up and saw the angel of the Lord standing between heaven and earth with a drawn sword in his hand extended over Jerusalem. Then David and the elders, clothed in sackcloth, fell face down. David said to God, Was it not I who ordered the fighting men to be counted? I am the one who has sinned and done wrong. These are but sheep. What have they done? O Lord, my God, let your hand fall upon me and my family. and do not let this plague remain on your people. Then the angel of the Lord ordered Gad to tell David to go up and build an altar to the Lord on the threshing floor of Arona the Jebusite. So David went up in obedience to the word that Gad had spoken in the name of the Lord. While Arona was threshing wheat, he turned and saw the angel. His four sons who were with him hid themselves. Then David approached and when Arona looked and saw him, he left the threshing floor and bowed down before David with his face to the ground. David said to him, let me have the site of your threshing floor so I can build an altar to the Lord that the plague on the people may be stopped. Sell it to me at the full price. Arona said to David, take it. Let my lord the king do whatever pleases him. Look, I will give the oxen for the burnt offerings, the threshing sledges for the wood, and the wheat for the grain offering. I will give all this. But King David replied to Arona, No, I insist on paying the full price. I will not take for the Lord what is yours, or sacrifice a burnt offering that costs me nothing. So David paid Arona 600 shekels of gold for the site. David built an altar to the Lord there and sacrificed burnt offerings and fellowship offerings. He called on the Lord, and the Lord answered him with fire from heaven on the altar of burnt offering. Then the Lord spoke to the angel, and he put his sword back in its sheath. At that time, when David saw that the Lord had answered him on the threshing floor of Arona the Jebusite, he offered sacrifices there. The tabernacle of the Lord, which Moses had made, was in the desert. I'm sorry, which Moses had made in the desert, and the altar of burnt offerings were at that time on the high place at Gibeon. But David could not go before it to inquire of God, because he was afraid of the sword of the angel of the Lord. Then David said, The house of the Lord God is to be here, and also the altar of burnt offering for Israel. Here ends the reading of God's word. What a story. A dark, dark day in the day of Israel. And it begins in verses 1-7 when we see how the Lord's perfect justice was provoked by prideful sin. Now taking a census was not wrong in and of itself. Many censuses were taken in Israel and for many different reasons over the course of their history. And we're given no reason here for this census other than David wanted to know how many are there. And we're not even told if or how this census was unlawful. We have no information. We just know from the text that something was wrong. We get our first suspicion when we read in verse 1 that it was Satan who incited David. And we can know for sure when we read verse 7 that it was evil in the sight of God. So we have our context there. But it's really the conversation between David and Joab that reveals to us the sin, the prideful sin that sparked the whole event. We read in verse 1 that Satan rose up against Israel and incited David to take a census of Israel. And we need to notice that Satan's role is over as soon as it starts. He's mentioned once and then he's gone. He's done his job. In fact, if we consider the account in Samuel, chapter 24 again, We learn that Satan did only what the Lord God had given him and allowed him to do. For we read in there, in that chapter, verse 1, that the anger of the Lord burned against Israel and he incited David. He incited David. Now this does not mean that the devil made David do it. It doesn't mean that the Lord made David do it. What it does mean is that in order for the Lord to exercise his justice against Israel, the nation, he allowed Satan to act as the agent who would entice and tempt David to do what he already wanted to do. Satan was the agent. David was the sinner. Now, we're not told why the Lord was angry with Israel. We're just told in Samuel that he was. But we can know that even in this, when he uses Satan as an instrument of his discipline, as he did with Job, and as we hear Paul refer to in 1 Corinthians, in the discipline of the church, he is not engaged in any sort of injustice or evil. He does not commit sin. We remember what Moses sang of him in Deuteronomy chapter 32, where he sang, he is the rock. His works are perfect, and all his ways are just. A faithful God who does no wrong, upright and just, is he. That's our God. That's the Lord. And so in doing this, in citing David to the census, it was an opportunity presented for the sinful pride of his own heart. And when David commanded Joab to take the census, Joab kind of pushed back. He was his first in command, his general, if you will. And he didn't like what he was hearing. And he said to the Lord, may the Lord multiply his troops a hundred times over. My Lord the king, are they not all my Lord's subjects? In other words, he's saying, why do you need to know how many there are? Does it really matter? If the Lord were to grant you a hundredfold increase in your lifetime, they would still all be your subjects. Why does it matter? Well, it mattered to David. And I think he'd been seduced by his power. This, again, was the pinnacle of his career. All the nations, the twelve tribes, had been joined together as one kingdom under him. All their enemies had been defeated and they were enjoying peace on every side. He had the promise of God that his kingdom, through one of his sons, would endure forever. And he couldn't wait. He was not content with the promise of God for the future. He wanted to know today the size, the immensity, the power of this kingdom that had been given to him. And I believe Joab put his finger on the king's pride when he asked him this question in verse 3. Why should you bring guilt on Israel? In other words, why should you bring upon Israel what you know is wrong? What you know will be a burden of debt that they will carry and for which the justice of God will demand a payment. Why? We don't get an answer. We just know that David told him to get out of here. He overruled him and sent him out. But in the doing, we need to recognize that even though the Lord's justice in this act, this act by David was going to provoke God's justice, it was part of a bigger plan. David's sin played an important part in God's plan to bring justice on Israel, his nation. So you see in this, David's sin was not only a personal sin, it became a corporate sin, a representational sin. As the anointed head of Israel, the guilt of his sin and the consequences that it would bring would affect not only him, but his people. Joab knew this. He warned the king, and the king sent him out. And so Joab went out against his will. And Samuel tells us for the better part of nine months, he went through the land and he came back in verse 5, and he gave the king the numbers. But even then, according to verse 6, they were incomplete because Joab, he didn't like this command. He thought it was wrong. He didn't count the Levites, and he didn't count the Benjamites. The census was incomplete, and therefore it never became official record in the annals of the king of David. And we stop here for a moment to consider the circumstance that David now finds himself. Enjoying the promises of God, and yet disdaining them for his own selfish ambition. And from this we should know, the chronicle alert would have us know that no one is exempt from provoking God's justice. with prideful sin. Not even David. The man after God's own heart. And just as the people of Israel shared in his sin as their head, we, man and woman, young and old, all share in the sin of our representative head, Adam. All of us deserve the judgment of God that was hanging over Israel that day. Both for the sin we're born with and the sin we commit. It's just what we confess in Heidelberg Catechism number 10, where we say that God as a just judge punishes our sins now and in eternity. And the circumstance we read up today was now for David, and he was going to experience the justice of God now. In fact, we find that in verse 7. It closes the first dialogue. It says, and God punished Israel. Literally, he struck them. Now, we can be thankful that our text does not stop here, just as David would be thankful that it did not stop there, with the justice of God being delivered upon us. And we press on to the second conversation in the text, that is in verses 8 through 18, where we learn in the dialogue between David and God that the Lord's perfect justice is restrained by great mercy. Samuel indicates that it was when Job gave the numbers that David saw his sin. We don't have that detail here, but we have in verse 8, David crying out. He says, I've sinned greatly by doing this. And I've done a very foolish thing. He realized that he was guilty before the Lord and he said, now I beg you, take away the guilt of your servant. Take away this sin just as you took it away when I sinned with Bathsheba and I killed her husband just as it was when I confessed to Nathan that I had sinned and Nathan assured me that your sin has been taken away your life is spared but your son will die David knew what it was to have his sin relieved and he knew what it was to experience the consequences of his sin that remained. But when Gad came to him in this text today, he brought no such assurance. He brought only consequences. We read in verse 10 and then what follows opens from this, but in verse 10 it's summed up. This is what the Lord says. I'm giving you three options. Choose one of them for me to carry out against you. Consequences of sin. And they were coming. David received no word of pardon no word of assurance in that word of God through Gad and he responded I am in deep distress in verse 13 let me fall into the hands of the Lord for his mercy is great do not let me fall into the hands of men I believe we see David's repentance deepening I believe we see a movement from foolishness to wisdom as he calls out upon the name of the Lord whose name is mercy. Is that not what the Lord showed Himself to be when Moses asked to see His glory? And He passed by Him in the rock and He showed Him and He gave Him His name. His name, I will have mercy on whom I'll have mercy. I'll have compassion on whom I'll have compassion. The name of the Lord is mercy. And David called upon that mercy. And I believe in his great mercy, the Lord chose the consequence for David and for Israel. He spared them widespread famine. He spared them the sword of their enemies. And he chose instead to bring his own sword of perfect justice against them. And he says in verse 14 that he sent a plague on Israel and 70,000 men of Israel fell dead. Now, He promised three days, but we have no reason to believe that the 70,000 wasn't the first day. The Lord had just begun. In fact, He says, He went on, He also sent an angel to destroy Jerusalem. We think in terms of 70,000, is that what it would be for many battles, if not an entire war? And in a day. But it was at Jerusalem that the mercy of the Lord was shown to be very great. For as the angel was going there, verse 15 says, As the angel was doing so, heading to Jerusalem, the Lord saw it and was grieved because of the calamity and said to the angel who was destroying the people, Enough, withdraw your hand. And the angel of the Lord was then standing at the threshing floor of Arona the Jebusite. Our text says that the Lord was grieved. New American Standard says he was sorry. English Standard says he relented. And the King James says that he repented. What are we to make of these words? Is the Lord's repentance here the same thing as David's repentance? Is it the same thing as our repentance for actually having a change of heart due to sorrow and guilt for doing something wrong? Absolutely not. He is our just God. He does no wrong. We know it can't be that. That the Lord was grieved means that he was moved to compassion. The motive for his mercy. It is his name, after all. And it was because of his compassion that the Lord relented. He stopped what he was doing. He told his angel, enough. Stay your hand. I think withdrawal gives us the wrong signal that somehow that's the end of it. He says, stay your hand. Stop where you are. Children, you may have played the game that I grew up playing called freeze tag. You run and chase each other and whoever is it, when they touch you, you have to freeze wherever you are and you can't move until someone touches you and unfreezes you. And in a sense, the Lord froze His angel that day. He said, enough. Stay your hand. His sword was drawn. the sword was raised he was ready to strike and the Lord said stop. And there he stood. Ready. So the Lord gave the command to go. This is restraint. In this the Lord repented. It was not a sign of him being changed but it was a sign of his mercy. It was consistent with his character. In fact it's what he promised through the prophet Jeremiah that he would do. He says in Jeremiah chapter 18, verse 6, he says, O house of Israel, can I not do with you as this potter does? He declares the Lord, comparing himself to a potter working at a wheel. Like clay in the hand of the potter, so are you in my hand, O house of Israel. I can do with you as I will. If at any time I announce that a nation or kingdom is to be uprooted, torn down, or destroyed, and if that nation I warn, repents of its evil, then I will relent and not inflict on it the disaster I had planned. I will have mercy on whom I'll have mercy. I will have compassion on whom I'll have compassion. And so we find it here at this moment that the angel of the Lord is frozen but ready to strike. He's standing at the threshing floor. And verse 16 tells us that David looked up and saw the angel of the Lord standing between heaven and earth with a drawn sword in his hand extended over Jerusalem. Then David and the elders, clothed in sackcloth, fell face down. Finally. Finally, David saw things as they really were. Finally, with full and complete repentance, he humbled his proud heart. He took off his kingly robes, he took off his warrior's armor, and he put on sackcloth and fell on his face in the dust before the Lord in the presence of the elders of Israel. Finally, he would rest content in the promise of God for the future. He would no longer plead for himself. Instead, he would plead for his people, even if it would cost him his life. And he cried out in verse 17, Was it not I who ordered the fighting men to be counted? I am the one who has sinned and done wrong. O Lord, my God, let your hand fall upon me and my family, but do not let this plague remain on your people. And remember, this whole event is serving God's greater purpose to bring Israel to repentance through his justice to turn them around. And he does so through David. He brings David to repentance. And here we see him. And as he brought David to repentance, we see that the Lord's will was accomplished because we find around him the elders of Israel also in sackcloth, also on their faces before the Lord. What David meant for evil, God meant for good. by the mercy of the Lord his justice was restrained was held back and in this event we see a picture of the greater truth that is even true for us today that even now we live in a time that is just like that moment where the judgment of God stands over this world ready to be delivered at the moment the Lord would declare no one knows the hour or the time but he stands ready and the only reason he restrains his hand is because he is mercy and we read this in 2 Peter chapter 3 where Peter reminds us do not forget this one thing dear friends with the Lord a day is like a thousand years and a thousand years are like a day the Lord is not slow in keeping his promise as some understand slowness he is patient with you not wanting anyone to perish but everyone to come to repentance Today is the day of salvation. It is the day of justice restrained. For that day will come. He will come like a thief. And when it does, that restraining mercy of the Lord will be taken. His justice will come upon all those who have not trusted in the Lord Jesus Christ to save them from it. Finally, we are drawn into the third part of this text in verses 19 through 27 by a statement of the Lord through the angel, through Gad, to David. I hope you sense the distance here. The Lord to the angel, to Gad, to David. He says, go tell David to go up and build an altar to the Lord on the threshing floor of Arona the Jebusite. Go up where my angels stand, sword ready to strike, and build an altar to the Lord. This introduces us to a final conversation where we come to see that the Lord's perfect justice must be satisfied by costly sacrifice. According to verse 19, the now humbled king, whose heart was right, went up in obedience to the word of God in the name, word of Gad that has spoken in the name of the Lord. You see the transition. David, the proud one. David, the humbled one. David, the obedient one. And we see in David, even at this point, before this all plays out, we see a picture of David, in David, of the life we are to have in the Lord Jesus Christ. The three things we must know to live and die in the joy of the comfort of the gospel, that first of all, we're sinners, that we have prideful hearts, that we throw ourselves in the mercy of God in Jesus Christ, and that because we trust in Him, we seek to be obedient, as David is here in our text. And David's on his way up, and in the meantime, according to verse 20, while Arona was threshing wheat, he turned, and he saw the angel, and his four boys with him, head for cover. You see, the danger's not past. The Lord's perfect justice had been restrained by mercy, had not been removed. The angel of the Lord was still standing between heaven and earth, right there, ready to strike, sword in hand. And in verse 21, David approaches and then Arona looked and saw him. He left the threshing floor and bowed down before David with his face to the ground. And once that introduction was made, a negotiation began for that plot of land on that hill outside Jerusalem. A negotiation over the price for a threshing floor. And throughout it all, David's purpose was clear and he never wavered. He was obedient. He was there to build an altar. And he was there to offer sacrifices in order to stop this plague. The sin had been his. So the payment of sin must be his. Therefore, we're told twice that David would pay nothing less than the full price. I insist, the full price. He says in verse 24, I will not take for the Lord what is yours, or sacrifice a burnt offering that costs me nothing. I insist, I must pay the full price. And we read, beginning in verse 26, that when the deal was finally struck, David did build an altar, and he did offer sacrifice, burnt offerings and fellowship offerings, and he called on the Lord. Now, we need to know what a burnt offering is. It's a guilt offering. It's a sin offering. It's where something is substituted as payment for the guilt of sin. And David offered that kind of sacrifice there on that mountain, at that threshing floor. Because of his sin and atoning sacrifice, a substitutionary payment for sin was needed. And it was supposed to be offered at the altar that was in the tabernacle that Moses had made. And that was at Gibeon, five miles out across the mountains. But verse 29 and 30 say that the tabernacle of the Lord which Moses had made in the desert and the altar of burnt offerings were at that time, at that high place at Gibeon. And David could not go there to inquire of the Lord because he was afraid of the sword of the angel of the Lord. David knew where he was supposed to go, but he was staying right here. And it tells us it was because of the fear of the angel's sword. And I think we must see this fear in two lights. First, certainly, it was a fearsome thing that he would be afraid for his life. But I think more importantly, he feared the Lord who had told him to come here and build an altar. And we know that this was the right move because we find that the Lord answered him with fire from heaven. The Lord answered by turning his fiery wrath away from David, away from Israel, to the sacrifice on that altar and consumed it all. And it is then, we read in verse 27, then the Lord spoke to the angel and he put his sword back into his sheath. Then the sword came down. Then the sword was put away. The Lord's perfect justice had finally been fully satisfied. and no longer hung over the head of David and the people of Israel. And therefore, David went on to offer fellowship offerings, offerings to celebrate the reunion of God with his people. No longer did David need to speak to God through Gad, but he would speak to him directly. Through the events of that day, David recognized the fulfillment of a promise. A promise not given to him directly. A promise given through Moses to Israel in Deuteronomy chapter 12. Moses had told Israel, you will cross the Jordan and settle in the land the Lord your God has given you as an inheritance. And he will give you rest from all your enemies around you so that you will live in safety. Then, to the place the Lord your God will choose as a dwelling for his name, there you are to bring everything I command you, your burnt offerings and sacrifices, your tithes and special gifts, and all the choice possessions you have vowed to the Lord. That promise made before they ever entered the land then was now for David. And there was the threshing floor of the Jebusite. Through the events of that day, the Lord revealed to David the place of sacrifice for the kingdom of Israel. And it was none other than the place that his father Abraham had been told to take Isaac, his son, and to offer him. The very place where God provided his first substitute for his people so many years before. And David understood the significance of that day and he said in verse 1 of chapter 22, he says, The house of the Lord God is to be here. and also the altar of burnt offerings for Israel. Right here. And indeed, that is where Solomon built the temple. That is the place where the sacrifices for Israel were offered day after day, year after year. Atonement was made for sin. Always looking forward, always looking forward to the promise of the covenant to David, that his son would build such a house. If you follow the rest of Chronicles from this chapter forward, it's almost exclusively concerned with what happens with the temple. It defined the people of God, and yet it failed. Because you see the sacrifice on that threshing floor that day, David not only echoed what Abraham had done, Not only did he choose and find or recognize the spot the Lord had chosen for sacrifice for his people, he portrayed the promise given to Abraham concerning his seed who was yet to come and who has come. The Son of God who would come and offer himself for the sins of his people. He would offer himself as the once for all atoning sacrifice, the once-for-all substitution for the sins of His people. And unlike David, Jesus knew no sin. And yet He became sin for us so that He could pay the full price of our redemption. He took our sin and He lived a sinless life in our place. He paid the full price. And He humbled Himself completely even to death on a cross. He was pleased to take upon himself the wrath of God in our place. He was pleased to satisfy fully the justice of God and to express completely the mercy of God for all who will trust in him and in his work for them. Our text this morning shows us how the Lord took what Israel and King David had meant for evil and turned it to a much greater good. It showed us how the Lord's perfect justice that had been provoked by prideful sin and restrained by His great mercy was satisfied only by costly sacrifice. And through the eyes of faith, all who trust in the Lord Jesus Christ for their salvation are to rest assured in this event that it points to how the Lord's perfect justice that is provoked by our prideful sin is even now being restrained by His great mercy because it has been eternally satisfied by the costly sacrifice of Jesus Christ, our Lord. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we are thankful for your word this morning. A word that speaks of a particular time and a particular place, a particular sin and a particular act on your part in response from David. But a time that shows us a much greater truth about the relationship of sinners to a just and holy God. And we thank you, Father, that by your grace, through faith in Jesus Christ, we can see ourselves as those who deserve your justice and yet know the restraint of your mercy. And know that that sacrifice of Jesus Christ on the cross so many years ago has satisfied your justice. That he's taken it for us so that on the last day we will never have to face it. And Lord, we pray for those who don't know this assurance, who don't know this comfort, who yet stand with the sword of your justice hanging over their heads. Who on the last day will find themselves receiving it in full measure apart from Christ. And we pray that they would see, as David did, the danger. That their hearts would be humbled. They would throw themselves on your mercy. They would look to the finished work of Jesus Christ as the only way to be spared. We ask for the advance of the gospel in this way. For the sake of Christ our Lord, in whose name we pray. Amen.