A Fitting End?

Well good morning. We are going to look at the very last chapter in 2 Samuel today. It’s been a long journey off and on for over a year now through 1 and 2 Samuel and even though we’ve still got a one more of week of this series as we wrap up, we are finally at the end of David’s story. And it’s kind of an unexpected ending.

Can you think of an example movie, book, or tv show that stands out to you because it had an unexpected ending? I’d give some examples, but if you were here a few weeks ago when I preached I was using a tv show as an illustration and I accidently said that I highly recommended the show even though it’s definitely got some PG13 stuff in it and that’s never a good thing to do from the pulpit. So you’ll have to come up with some examples on your own because I’m not going there again.

Chances are, if you can think of a movie or book or show that ends in an unexpected way, that ending is purposeful. The way a story ends is often the most important part of the story so when it’s not what you expect there’s generally a pretty good reason the writer wanted to end the story the way he or she did.

And I think that’s what we find here in 2 Samuel. The reason this ending to 2 Samuel is so odd is because by the time we get to chapter 24, it seems like the book has already ended. We get this lengthy song of deliverance in chapter 22 that we haven’t looked at yet, but Chris will unpack for us next week. Then we get David’s last words in chapter 23 that Jeff looked at last week. So you’d think the book would end right there.

But then we get to chapter 24 and it seems like we just jumped right back into the middle of 2 Samuel. What we’ll see in this final chapter of the book is the same pattern we’ve seen time and time again: David sins, Davids repents, God forgives David.

I don’t think this is just tagged on to the end of this book. It’s here for a reason and it’s worth our attention and study this morning. So as we dig into this story we’ll walk through it in three parts. We’ll look at David’s sin, David’s repentance, and David’s atonement. First, David’s sin. Read with me 2 Samuel 24:1-10a

[Read 2 Samuel 24:1-10a]

1) David’s Sin

So the very first thing we see in these verses is that “the anger of the Lord was kindled against Israel.” And we don’t know exactly why God was angry. These verses really do at some level seem to come out of nowhere. But what we do know is that God’s anger against Israel is always due to some sort of disobedience on their part. God doesn’t get angry for no reason. So as your reading along in 2 Samuel you get David’s song, David’s last words, you’re thinking “everyone lived happily ever after,” and then in chapter 24, verse 1, someone’s blown it again.

Again the anger of the Lord was kindled against Israel. Again there was sin and disobedience in the land. Really? We’re so tired of this same story over and over again aren’t we?

But this is why 2 Samuel 24 really is the perfect ending to the book. It touches on the major themes throughout the whole book one last time and invites us to identify our own lives in David’s life one last time. We’ve said this over and over again in our study of David’s life, but the mess we see in this book is the mess of our lives as well. This pattern we see in 2 Samuel of good times followed by some mistake that disrupts the good, followed by more prospering, followed by another mistake that threatens to destroy everything; this is the pattern of our lives is it not?

Putting a more pointed Christian spin on it we could say that we are on fire for God for a season, reading our Bibles and praying, and feeling his peace and joy, and then we fall away from God for a season. Oftentimes that’s because of our sin, but maybe it’s just because we’re having a hard time and don’t feel close to God. And then times of refreshing come again. But they don’t last as long as we want them to.

And so even though the fact that we have to go back here again and look at the brokenness in this chapter again is frustrating and tiresome, it’s also honest. This is real life. The Bible doesn’t paint a picture of God’s people as artificially happy all the time or as perfect people who have it altogether. The good news of the story of the Bible is only good news if we first recognize the mess of our lives and our world.

So what happens next? It says “The Lord incited David against Israel, saying, ‘Go, number Israel and Judah.’” God plans to use David as an instrument of judgement against Israel and he does so through David’s desire to have a census. So David tells Joab, his top commander, to go take a census of Israel. But, Joab questions David and says “Why does my lord the king delight in this thing?” Yet David decides to go through with the census anyway and, as we’ll see, this was a sinful choice.

Now, there’s a couple of things here that need some explanation. The first is that the narrator tells us that God incited David against Israel so why is David ultimately held responsible for his actions? This story is a really good example of the tension in the Christian life between God’s sovereignty and human responsibility. Christians have disagreed on the relationship between these two things forever so we aren’t going to even get close to settling it now, but here’s two things that this story teaches and the rest of the Bible confirms for us: God is sovereign over all things and human beings are responsible for their actions.

We believe that God is sovereign over everything that has happened, is happening, and will happen in creation. So whether 2 Samuel tells us plainly that God is directly behind David’s plan to take a census or not, we know that the census is part of God’s plan. But we also believe that human beings are responsible for their actions. Our minds are not able to see how these two things fit together, but if we could understand all the biggest mysterious of the universe on our own, God wouldn’t be very impressive would he?

Andrew Fuller says it like this, “A fleshly mind may ask, “How can these things be?” How can Divine predestination accord with human agency and accountableness? But a truly humble Christian, finding both in his Bible, will believe both, though he may be unable fully to understand their consistency; and he will find in the one a motive to depend entirely on God, and in the other a caution against slothfulness and presumptuous neglect of duty.”

Fuller says that we might not be able to fully understand it, but we find both God’s sovereignty and human responsibility taught in the Bible so we should accept them. And that these two doctrines also work together to lead us to rely on God on the one hand, but also work hard to obey God and serve others on the other.

The second part of this story that needs further explanation is why taking the census was a sinful thing for David to do. The story itself doesn’t actually tell us but most commentators agree that the reason taking a census was a sinful thing for David to do was because his motives for doing so were selfish. Really the only reason David would need to find out how many people were in Israel was if he wanted to know how large of an army was available to him. And this reveals that he was trusting in the size of his army instead of the strength of his God for any future battles that would come his way.

The size of the nation was also seen as a sign of God’s favor so David could also have been trying to take God’s temperature so to speak and find out if God was still on his side. Most likely both of these things are at play here and show that instead of simply trusting the God who has delivered him time and time again, David wants to make sure he has a strong army and that God is still happy with him. Once again we see David fall into sin.

Even though we’ve seen this pattern of sin over and over again in 2 Samuel, I think It’s worth taking a moment here to address the specifics of David’s sin this time around and how we can be tempted to do the same thing in our contexts. First, David trusts in the size of his army instead of his God. So let me ask you, what are you trusting in instead of God?

This past year has been very difficult and one thing it should have taught us is that no matter the strength of the things of this world we trust in, they can so easily let us down. My job is secure, until essentially every sector of the global economy comes screeching to a halt. My family is super healthy, until a virus sparks a global pandemic and kills millions. My house is my refuge, until my power goes out for a week during an ice storm or my pipes burst during a deep freeze.

We like control and so we try to build our armies and we take stock of what we have and we either feel good about it or we don’t. But as Christians instead of placing our confidence in 401k’s, good health, and nice homes we can and we should place our trust and confidence in the sovereign God of the universe. And the other side is true as well. Instead of being in fear over a lack of a 401k, poor health, or a run down house, we can and we should place our trust and our hope in the sovereign God of the universe.

David trusting in his army reminds me of a story in 2 Kings. In 2 Kings 6, Israel is greatly outnumbered in battle and a soldier comes to Elisha the prophet and says , “Alas, my master! What shall we do?” And verse 17 says, “Then Elisha prayed and said, ‘O Lord, please open his eyes that he may see.’ So the Lord opened the eyes of the young man, and he saw, and behold, the mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire all around Elisha.”

This soldier was afraid of the size of Israel’s army, when in reality they had an army of angels led by the King of the Universe on their side. In the same way, David was trusting in an army of men, when the whole time he had an army of angels by his side. The same is true for us. Whether we are prone to build our worldly armies and trust in them instead of God or prone to look at our wordly armies and despair becuase they are so weak, as believers we should be trusting in the God of angel armies instead.

The second aspect of David’s sin is that he seeks to validate his life and his standing with God based on his performance. As I said, a large population was a sign of God’s favor and a small population a sign of God’s judgement. So in his census, David is likely trying to find out, is God showing me favor? Are these uprisings over? Will peace finally endure in my kingdom?

But here’s the problem. God made a covenant with David that Israel would prosper and that David’s kingdom would have no end. So David already had the answer he was looking for. God’s favor was still on him, not because of anything he was doing, but because God had chosen David and brought David into relationship with himself.

Again, it’s not hard to see ourselves in this situation. Where do you look for validation, both in your life and with God? Work or family are two obvious ones. It’s so easy for us to define ourselves or measure the success of our lives not by the size of an army, by how good of a job we have or how perfect our family is. It’s easy for us as Christians to see these things in relation to God as well, so if we have the good job and the good family, then God must be pleased with us.

Or we could take this application another way and think about more specific Christian things we do. What I mean by that is we can assume our relationship with God is good when we go to church, read our Bibles, pray, and are excited about doing these things. We usually seek validation in the things we can visibly see and have control over, things like work, family, and spiritual disciplines. But just like David, God has made a covenant with us.

God has called us into relationship with himself, God has promised not to leave us or forsake us, God has promised to make us more and more like Jesus, and he has promised an eternal future with him without sin or suffering. And none of those promises are dependent upon our success in work life, family life, or really even “Christian” life. Just like David, we have no need to seek validation because God has already validated us.

Have you ever gone to a restaurant or a shop in downtown Oklahoma City or maybe a bigger city and you have to pay for parking but the place you eat at or shop in can validate your parking so you can get your money back? Usually how that works is you do actually pay to park, then you have to go find the person to validate your parking ticket, then you go and get your money back. It’s a little bit of a process.

But our validation with God would be like driving up to parking the attendant and getting a parking ticket that is already validated. There’s no need to pay and then work to get the ticket validated and get the money back. When God calls us into a saving relationship with himself through his Son Jesus, our ticket is already stamped. Validated. Worthy of God’s presence. Worthy of God’s love. Worthy of deep, meaningful life here on earth and joyful eternal life with him forever. David forgot that. And we can so easily do the same.

Let’s keep reading in our story. We’ll pick back up in verse 10.

[Read 2 Samuel 24:10-14]

2) David’s Repentance

As we’ve seen time and time again over the past 15 chapters or so of 2 Samuel, David quickly and decisively repents of his sin. There’s no getting around it. David has committed sin after sin in the later years of his life, including some major sins like adultery and murder. Yet what we also see is that David always, always acknowledges his sin and turns from it. Sometimes it takes awhile, it usually involves a friend calling him out, but the important thing is that David repents.

This is the first time I’ve studied David’s whole life from beginning to end and I’m guessing it probably is the first time for you as well. And we’ve seen all of the usual highlights of David’s life, the battles he’s won, killing Goliath with a slingshot, the way he honors Saul even when Saul wants to kill him, his relationship with Johnathan his best friend. And we’ve seen the major sin with Bathsheba, of course.

But what has stood out to me most from our study is just how broken and sinful David really is. And that’s not to minimize David’s greatness because he truly is a remarkable human being and Israel’s greatest king, but most of the mess we’ve been dealing with the last few months just gets swept under the rug. And as I was reflecting this week, I couldn’t help but ask myself, “Is this really the man after God’s own heart?” Is this what someone authentically following Jesus really looks like?

And here’s the answer: yes! Faithful followers of Jesus are not those who have everything together and never mess up; they are those who quickly and decisively repent and turn back to God when they do. Now I’m not saying personal holiness isn’t important, it is. But what the whole story of David’s life from beginning to end teaches us is that being a man after God’s own heart doesn’t mean you never fail and never sin against God and never hurt other people. It means that because you have a new heart that earnestly desires to know God, when you fail, when you sin, you always repent.

Saul and David both commit the same sins. David repents and Saul doesn’t. This is the sign of a transformed heart. Not outward perfection, but our willingness to admit we are sinners in need of a savior and to turn back to the Savior each and every time we fall.

When Martin Luther nailed his 95 Theses to the door of the church in Wittenberg, the very first one said this: “Our Lord and Master Jesus Christ willed the entire life of believers to be one of repentance.”

Here’s what Tim Keller said about Luther’s words, “On the surface this looks a little bleak! Luther seems to be saying Christians will never be making much progress. But of course that wasn't Luther's point at all. He was saying that repentance is the way we make progress in the Christian life. Indeed, pervasive, all-of- life-repentance is the best sign that we are growing deeply and rapidly into the character of Jesus.” Repentance, not performance, according to Keller, is the best sign of a life transformed by the grace of Jesus.

So let me ask you, do you repent when you sin? Do you ask God for forgiveness? Do you apologize to those you’ve wounded and ask them for forgiveness as well?

If your not a Christian or maybe call yourself a Christian but aren’t serious about your faith, let me say something to you for a minute. The world tends to characterize Christians as people who think they are better than everyone else because they don’t do certain things that other people do. But that’s not true Christianity.

What the Bible teaches is that none of us have it altogether, none of us are good enough to measure up to God, and that I don’t become a Christian and follow Jesus because I’m good, but because he welcomed me in despite my many flaws. That’s authentic Christianity.

Alright, let’s see how the book of 2 Samuel ends. We’ll start again in verse 15.

[Read 2 Samuel 24:15-25]

3) David’s Atonement

So here we see the punishment for Israel’s disobedience and David’s subsequent sin in taking a census: 70,000 people die. But even in this punishment we see God’s mercy as he stops the angel just as it is about to reach Jerusalem. And as David sees that the tragedy stops right at the threshing floor of Araunah, he cries out and asks God to punish him and his household but not any more of the people of Israel. Then David buys the threshing floor from Araunah and builds and altar to God, offers an offering, and God receives David’s offering and stops the plague.

And that’s how Samuel ends. Not with David’s swan song in chapter 22 or his last words in chapter 23, but with David making an offering to God. Unexpected isn’t it? But now we’re getting at the heart of why I think it’s intentional. This part of the ending serves three purposes: it reinforces the theme of atonement, it links David with God’s promises elsewhere in the Old Testament, and it looks ahead to the coming Messiah.

So first, this ending reinforces the theme of atonement. All throughout 1 and 2 Samuel, we’ve seen that sin requires atonement, and that atonement involves the shedding of blood. Saul rejects God’s anointed one David and Saul is killed for his sin. David commits adultery with Bathsheba and murders her husband Uriah, and David’s son has to die. Absalom rebels against his father and is killed. We saw two weeks ago that in order to atone for Saul’s sin when he killed the Gibeonites, David, many many years later, hangs 7 Israelites up on a mountain.

And now, in response to Israel’s disobedience and David’s census, 70,000 die and the plague is only averted when David makes atonement in the form of an offering. Like Jeff said two weeks ago, atonement is messy. Sin is serious and it requires atonement.

This ending also links David to the rest of the Old Testament. The reason I say that is because this site that David purchases, the threshing floor of Araunah ends up becoming the place where Solomon, David’s son, builds the temple. And not only that but the temple was built on Mount Moriah, which is also where Abraham offered up his son Isaac back in Genesis. So David fits in nicely in the middle of those two parts of Israel’s history as the one who makes an offering in the same area that Abraham offered Isaac and also purchases the land that will be used for God’s temple.

But why does all this matter? Why does God want to hammer home the need for atonement and is there really any significance to this being the same spot Abraham offered Isaac and Solomon will build the temple? I think the answer has to be yes.

The Bible is one unified story of God creating the world, watching his people turn from him, redeeming his people from their brokenness, and promising to recreate a new world without any sin or sadness. And the emphasis on atonement teaches us that we can’t come into relationship with a holy God unless someone atones with their blood for our sin. And the link between Abraham and Isaac and Solomon’s temple reminds us that God has promised to be the one to fully and finally atone for sins.

Abraham was willing to offer up Isaac but God provided a ram instead. And the temple is God’s greatest Old Testament picture of his presence with his people and his offer of forgiveness. And then there’s David making this offering on behalf of the people.

David, the greatest king in Israel’s history, the one surrounded by all of his mighty men, asks God to punish him instead of the people and takes it upon himself to make the atonement for their sins. This isn’t normal behavior for a king.

How many presidents or governors or CEO’s or any leaders really, do you know who would be willing to leave their high place of authority and power and suffer on behalf of those they lead? Yet this is what David does. David’s role as Israel’s king was to represent God to the people. He was God’s representative on earth. But here David takes up the role of priest: to represent the people to God.

David lays aside his power and glory as God’s ruler over Israel in order to stand in between God’s wrath and the people’s sin. Does that remind you of someone? Another king who willingly lays aside his power and glory in order to stand between our sin and the punishment we deserve?

This ending to David’s story in 1 and 2 Samuel is not meant to exalt David. If it were, the book would have ended after chapter 22 or 23. This ending is meant to point forward and exalt the one who would come and not just make atonement for one period of disobedience for the nation of Israel, but for every sin ever committed, past, present, and future, for every human being who has lived, is living, and will live. And that king is Jesus.

So let me ask you final question. Is Jesus your king? Have you trusted in Jesus for the forgiveness of your sins and do you seek to live your life in obedience to him? If so, continue to trust him.

If Jesus isn’t your king, would today be the day that changes? Would you be able to join us in two weeks not because it’s a fun holiday with bright colors, flowers, and bunnies, but to celebrate the most important event in the history of the world? That Jesus died for our sins and rose from the grave to defeat sin and death once and for all.

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