1 Chronicles 21-22: Security, Sacrifice, and Legacy

We trace David’s misstep in counting Israel’s fighting men, the mercy that met his repentance, and how a place of judgment became the site for God’s house. We draw a straight line from ancient numbers to modern security and end with a charge to build with courage.

• why David’s census undercut trust in God
• Joab’s warning and the weight of leadership
• choosing mercy over fear in judgment options
• the threshing floor becomes an altar and a future temple site
• why costly sacrifice matters for real worship
• David’s preparation for Solomon’s temple work
• courage, wisdom, and obedience as true measures of success
• trading metrics for mission in everyday life

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Get up and build the sanctuary of the Lord God

Chapters

• 0:34 Names And Pronunciation Anxiety
• 2:22 Was The Adversary Satan
• 4:04 David Orders The Census
• 5:57 Joab Objects And God Offended
• 7:00 Three Judgments And The Plague
• 8:31 The Threshing Floor And The Altar
• 10:35 Fire From Heaven And New Site
• 11:58 Preparations For The Temple
• 13:51 David Charges Solomon To Build
• 14:59 Mercy, Transformation, And Call To Build

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:23

Hey, welcome back to the Outloud Bible Project Podcast. This is Mike. We're going through the book of First Chronicles, and as you've probably realized, there's a lot of just, I don't know, Old Testamenty names, names of people and names of places. Some friends who listened to the podcast told me, hey, we were uh reading through 1 Samuel and coming across a bunch of these old names, and we're just kind of struggling to read them and and say them out loud, and we're like, ah, where's Mike when you need him? How do you how do you read all those names like that? Well, I'll tell you, first of all, I have the freedom in recording this podcast to pause and figure out, hey, wait, how am I gonna say this? And so it doesn't have to happen all in one go. Uh that's true of me, and it's certainly true of you as you read at home and your own pace. Uh also, you know, the more you read it, the more you just kind of get used to seeing some of these names. And, you know, it kind of like starts to look less foreign and more familiar the more you get into it. Ultimately, though, honestly, I don't know how to pronounce them. You could study Hebrew and get a real good sense of it if you'd like. Uh, I haven't done a whole lot of that, frankly. I'd like to learn more. But in the meantime, you know what? Just make a choice and don't get stuck on it. Don't worry about it. Don't let it throw you off. Stick with it. It's totally fine. I'm sure we'll get to heaven and meet some of these people and we're like, whoa, I was I was pronouncing it wrong the whole time. If it matters even at that point. But hey, I would love to hear from you. Uh, you can shoot a message through the episode description of this podcast episode. Uh be aware though, I can't respond back in that way. So uh if you'd like a response from me, I'd recommend going to the website outloudbible.com. There's a contact page there. Just reach out, send a message, let me know. Questions, comments, requests, inquiries, whatever, whatever comes to mind. And I'd love to hear from you. So we're in the book of First Chronicles today, and we're taking a look at David's life at this point, and there's a lot of hills and valleys, a lot of rises and falls of David's life, a lot of military victories, a lot of moral victories, and unfortunately, some moral failures. And today we're going to read about one of them. Now, I'll tell you right now, in this translation that I'm reading, the New English translation, it's going to start by saying that an adversary opposed Israel, and then we'll read about what happened there. Other translations will say Satan opposed Israel, because the word really is Satan. Talk about pronunciations, but it's the word that we get Satan from, which literally means adversary. Satan means adversary. But in this case, it's like a lowercase s, and it looks to be the first time that appears in the Old Testament. And so this translation says it's an adversary doing this. Other translations think it's fair to say that Satan did this inciting David to do something. It certainly seems like something Satan would do. So I think it's an interesting point since this translation did not specifically name Satan as the adversary here, but other translations certainly do. I think it's at least something interesting to think about. But whether or not Satan was the adversary in this story, we can certainly reflect on our own life and recognize that he is the adversary working against us and leading us astray by our own desires, and tempting us to do what we kind of frankly want to do anyway, and he'll present those opportunities, and we have to deal with the consequences. Let's talk about where we find our security, our sacrifice, and our legacy here in 1 Chronicles 21 and 22. An adversary opposed Israel, inciting David to count how many warriors Israel had. David told Joab and the leaders of his army, Go and count the number of warriors from Beersheba to Dan, and then bring back a report, so I may know how many we have. Joab replied, May the Lord make his army a hundred times larger. My master, O king, do not all of them serve my master? Why does my master want to do this? Why bring judgment on Israel? But the king's edict stood despite Joab's objections, so Joab left and travelled throughout Israel before returning to Jerusalem. Joab reported to David the number of warriors. In all Israel there were one million one hundred thousand sword wielding soldiers. Judah alone had four hundred and seventy thousand sword wielding soldiers. Now Joab did not number Levi and Benjamin, for the king's edict disgusted him. God was also offended by it. So he attacked Israel. David said to God, I have sinned greatly by doing this. Now please remove the guilt of your servant, for I have acted very foolishly. The Lord told Gad, David's prophet, Go and tell David this is what the Lord says. I am offering you three forms of judgment from which to choose. Pick one of them. Gad went to David and told him, This is what the Lord says pick one of these three years of famine, or three months being chased by your enemies and struck down by their swords, or three days being struck down by the Lord, during which a plague will invade the land, and the angel of the Lord will destroy throughout Israel's territory. Now decide what I should tell the one who sent me. David said to Gad, I'm very upset. I prefer to be attacked by the Lord, for his mercy is very great. I don't want to be attacked by men. So the Lord sent a plague throughout Israel, and seventy thousand Israelite men died. God sent an angel to ravage Jerusalem. As he was doing so, the Lord watched and relented from his judgment. He told the angel who was destroying, That's enough. Stop now. Now the angel of the Lord was standing near the threshing floor of Ornan the Jebusite. David looked up and saw the angel of the Lord standing between the earth and the sky with his sword drawn and in his hand stretched out over Jerusalem. David and the leaders covered with sackcloth threw themselves down with their faces to the ground. David said to God, Was I not the one who decided to number the army? I am the one who sinned and committed this awful deed. As for these sheep, what have they done? O Lord, my God, attack me and my family, but remove the plague from your people. So the angel of the Lord told Gad to instruct David to go up and build an altar for the Lord on the threshing floor of Ornan the Jebusite. So David went up as Gad instructed him to do in the name of the Lord. While Ornan was threshing wheat, he turned and saw the messenger, and he and his four sons hid themselves. When David came to Ornan, Ornan looked and saw David. He came out from the threshing floor and bowed to David with his face on the ground, and David said to Ornan, Sell me the threshing floor so that I can build on it an altar for the Lord. I'll pay top price so that the plague may be removed from the people. Ornan told David, You can have it. My master the king may do what he wants. Look, I'm giving you the oxen for burnt sacrifices, the threshing sledges for wood, and the wheat for an offering. I'll give it all to you. The King David replied to Ornan, No, no, I insist on buying it for top price. I will not offer to the Lord what belongs to you or offer a burnt sacrifice that cost me nothing. So David bought the place from Ornan for six hundred pieces of gold. David built there an altar to the Lord and offered burnt sacrifices and peace offerings. He called out to the Lord, and the Lord responded by sending fire from the sky and consuming the burnt sacrifice on the altar. The Lord ordered the messenger to put his sword back into its sheath. At that time when David saw that the Lord responded to him at the threshing floor of Ornan the Jebusite, he sacrificed there. Now the Lord's tabernacle, which Moses had made in the wilderness, and the altar for burnt sacrifices were at that time at the worship center in Gibeon, but David couldn't go before it to seek God's will, for he was afraid of the sword of the angel of the Lord. And then David said, This is the place where the temple of the Lord God will be, along with the altar for burnt sacrifices for Israel. So David ordered the resident foreigners in the land of Israel to be called together. He appointed some of them to be stone cutters to chisel stones for the building of God's temple. David supplied a large amount of iron for the nails of the doors of the gates and for braces, more bronze than could be weighed, and more cedar logs than could be counted. The Sidonians and Tyrians had brought a large amount of cedar logs to David. David said, My son Solomon is just an inexperienced young man, and the temple to be built for the Lord must be especially magnificent, so it'll become famous and be considered splendid by all the nations. Therefore I'll make preparations for its construction. So David made extensive preparations before he died. He summoned his son Solomon and charged him to build a temple for the Lord God of Israel. David said to Solomon, My son, I really wanted to build a temple to honor the Lord my God, but this was the Lord's message to me. You have spilled a great deal of blood and fought many battles. You must not build a temple to honor me, for you've spilled a great deal of blood on the ground before me. Look, you will have a son who will be a peaceful man. I'll give him rest from all his enemies on every side. Indeed, Solomon will be his name. I'll give Israel peace and quiet during his reign. He will build a temple to honor me, and he will become my son, and I will become his father. I will grant to his dynasty permanent rule over Israel. And now, my son, may the Lord be with you. May you succeed and build a temple for the Lord your God, just as he announced you would. Only may the Lord give you insight and understanding when he places you in charge of Israel, so that you may obey the law of the Lord your God. Then you'll succeed if you carefully obey the rules and regulations which the Lord ordered Moses to give to Israel. Be strong and brave. Don't be afraid, don't panic. Now look, I've made every effort to supply what's needed to build the Lord's temple. I've stored up one hundred thousand talents of gold, a million talents of silver, and so much bronze and iron it can't be weighed, as well as wood and stones. Feel free to add more. You also have available many workers, including stone cutters, masons, carpenters, and an innumerable array of workers who are skilled in using gold, silver, bronze, and iron. Get up, begin the work. May the Lord be with you. David ordered all the officials of Israel to support his son Solomon, and he told them, The Lord your God is with you. He has made you secure on every side, for he handed over to me the inhabitants of the region, and the region is subdued before God and his people. Now seek the Lord your God wholeheartedly, and with your entire being. Get up and build the sanctuary of the Lord God. Then you can bring the Ark of the Lord's covenant and the holy items dedicated to God's service into the temple that's built to honor the Lord. So David counting his fighting men at the beginning of this episode is a little bit of a confusing sin. Although we don't know exactly what the background there was, why Joab knew that, oh, this is a bad thing, but we can assume that David was trying to find some sense of strength and security and stability in the numbering of his men. I want to know how many men I have, because then I'll feel secure, right? And that would be the sin when our security comes from God. Now we don't count armies, but we certainly count dollars. I know some people who check their bank account every morning or throughout the day. Why do we do that? To get some sense of security of like, oh I'm okay. Or oh no, I'm not okay, I gotta go do something to fix this. This stands in stark contrast to what we read last episode when we found that the Lord gave David the victory. The Lord gave David the victory, not his million men, and yet we know in our lives that yes, God gives us the victory, but we're gonna feel better about it if we feel like there's some sense of security as we go about our work, as we go about our life. We count our friends, we count our dollars, we count our credentials on our resume to give us some sense of like, okay, I'll be okay moving forward. That's wrong. Now God was gracious and gave David a multiple choice punishment, and David wisely chose the punishment that came directly from God, knowing that God is merciful. And God did indeed relent. When you find yourself relying on anything other than God, repent and go to God and rely on Him to be merciful and gracious, even if you have to go through a time of discipline to train that mindset out of you. God is very much interested not in punishing you, but in transforming your heart to be like his. Make your peace with God and don't get stuck in the shame and the guilt of that. That's dead and gone. If you've forgiven and repented, he's forgotten it. You should too. It's time to get up and set your mind on building the kingdom in the future. And to that end, just like David provided Solomon with all of the riches and wealth that he needed, God has given you abundantly more than you need. He's given you great gifts, great abilities to be able to go do exactly what he wants you to do to establish his presence on earth. And so, like it says in chapter 22, verse 19 now seek the Lord your God wholeheartedly and with your entire being. Get up and build the sanctuary of the Lord God. All right, so get up. What are you waiting for? That's the thinking out loud thought for the day.