Wednesday Night Service 7PM - I Chronicles 21-22 - Pastor Ryan Nichols

All right. Well, good evening. Merry Christmas to everybody. I'm glad you're here. I invite you to stand with me. We'll pray and we'll get started.

Father, we come before you this evening. We just thank you for another day. Just thank you for allowing us to be here this evening. And I just ask you, you bless this time, Lord, and just help us to lavish praise upon you because you're worthy of all of our praise. You're worthy of all honor and glory, Father. Pray these things in Jesus' name. Amen. Go ahead and have a seat if you like.

Our God, our God, our God, angel.

Father, we just come before you tonight. We just thank you for another day. And Lord, we thank you for this time of year, Lord, as we celebrate the birth of your son, Jesus. And Lord, as we come into this time, I just pray that we would just keep our focus on what this season is really about. And it's really about you. It's really about you stepping down from your throne in heaven and coming to earth and living among us and paying the price for our sins.

And Father, we love you. And now that as Pastor Ryan comes, I just ask that your Holy Spirit would rest upon him. Lord, just move mightily tonight. And we ask it in Jesus' name. Amen.

If you would open up in your Bibles to the book of 1 Chronicles chapter 21. 1 Chronicles 21.

Well, remember, Chronicles was written to the Jews that were returning from exile. In particular, to sort of rekindle that. The national spirit that they had inside of them to rehearse the history for them. And so there's a lot about the life of David that kind of gets skipped with 1 Chronicles. Kind of brushes over some of the bad parts of David's life. However, this is one instance where the writer of the Chronicles does include sort of a downfall in the life of David.

Most of us remember David's worst sin as being what he did with Bathsheba. But I believe in God's eyes what he does in this chapter 21. Is actually viewed perhaps even worse. Because while the sin with Bathsheba was a moment of the flesh overtaking. This is a moment where David allows pride to creep in. And if there's one thing that God hates, it's pride. And so there's two things that we're going to look at tonight in the two chapters that we cover.

The first is the census. The second is we'll look at some temple preparations. But let's first look at this census in chapter 21. It says this.

And move David to number Israel. So David said to Joab and to the princes of the people, Go and number Israel from Bathsheba even to Dan. And bring me word that I may know their number. And Joab said, May the Lord add to his people a hundred times as many as they are. But my lord the king, are they not all my lord's servants? Why does my lord seek this thing?

Why should he be a cause of guilt to Israel? Nevertheless, the king's word prevailed. He prevailed against Joab. Joab departed and went throughout all Israel and came to Jerusalem. Now it's interesting to look at this first verse. Because this exact same story is rehearsed for us also in the book of 2 Samuel. But it starts off very differently in 2 Samuel chapter 24.

In 2 Samuel chapter 24, it says that the anger of God was against Israel. And so he moved the heart of David to number the people. This time it says Satan stood up against Israel and he moved David to number Israel. So you should ask yourself a question. Why the discrepancy? And is it a discrepancy? I would say that it's not a discrepancy. I would say that this is actually God's sovereignty at work.

We see that Satan moved David, but God used it as chastisement against the nation of Israel. Because the interesting thing is God even uses the attempts of Satan to destroy for his own good purposes. Take for instance the book of Job. In the book of Job, Satan brings up Job. Actually, God brings up Job to Satan. And Satan says, of course, you won't let me touch him.

And God allows Satan to go so far with Job because he's going to teach him a lesson that he wouldn't be able to learn any other way. And so it's interesting to take a look at the way that this starts. Either way, it starts off this way. Satan stood up against Israel and he moved David to number the people. Now, there's nothing wrong with taking a census of the people.

But there was a command. There was a command of God that was supposed to take place with a census of the people. You might, in the margin of your Bible, write Exodus 30, verse 12. Exodus 30, verse 12. Because in Exodus chapter 30, verse 12, this is the command that God gives. He says, when a census of the people is taken. And if you follow, if you remember our time in Exodus as well as Numbers and Deuteronomy,

you remember there was two or three different censuses of the people that were taken. Both when they left Egypt and when they came into the Promised Land. But God said this. When you number the people, there is to be a sacrifice, especially for the males among the people, because the people belong to me. And that's the real issue that we run into here. Is that these people, the Jewish people, the Israelites, belonged to God.

And everybody knew at this stage in the ballgame, especially at this point in time in history, especially for a king to number the people, it was an indication that he thought that the people belonged. To him. And so, David gives this command to go and number the people. But notice Joab. The one time, Joab is incredibly spiritual in his life. Because if you remember anything about Joab, that rough old warrior wasn't exactly known

for being overly sensitive to the Holy Spirit. But this one point in time, Joab goes, listen, I got some problems, but this is a bad idea. And when the non-spiritual people look at you and say, this is a bad idea, you should stop and ask yourself, is this a good idea? Because if even the non-spiritual people are like, hmm, this feels like the wrong thing to do, you should check your spirit.

Anyway, David doesn't. So Joab stands up and he says, listen, Dave, may the Lord add to his people a hundred times as many as there are right now, but don't do this thing. Don't sin against the people of Israel in this way. Now, you should ask yourself the question, what is the great sin? If God had not specifically said, don't take a sin, in the instance of the people, there was a right and a wrong way to do it.

Why does Joab know beyond a shadow of a doubt that what David is about to do with the people is sin? Well, I think at the heart of the issue, the heart of the issue with what David's doing here are two things. One of them, I came up with myself because I felt pretty good about that. And I'm going to deal with that in just a second. The other one I hadn't thought about, J. Vernon McGee brought it up,

and I thought it was a fascinating point. The first issue at the heart of David numbering these people is pride. See what I did there? I acted prideful to show you that the problem was pride. The main problem was pride. Here's the interesting thing about pride. Pride is the sin that we cannot identify in ourselves, but we find repulsive in other people. Pride is the sin that we cannot identify in ourselves, but we always find repulsive in other people,

which is why David didn't see it. But listen, Joab did. Joab could look and say, you've got a problem, David, and the problem that you have is this is pride on your part. You see, he wanted to be able to number his people so that he could look, in particular, at his warriors and say, look at how mighty my army is. Look at this great army that God has given to me.

Because what was David? He was a military man. And he spent his life building the nation of Israel. He spent his life building the armies of the people of Israel. After all, he had his mighty men. He had all of these Philistines that he had defeated. And there was so much pride at this point in time in the heart of David that even when it was pointed out by Joab that this is a problem,

he said, no, I'm going to do it anyway. And that's the problem with pride, is you don't even see it when somebody points it out to you. Only God, who's really, really good at it, we're going to see that in just a minute, only God can really root out pride inside of our lives. But the second problem that David had, again, I didn't think too much about this until J. Vernon McGee pointed it out.

He said one of the main problems that David had is he had a problem with unbelief. He had a problem with unbelief. You see, David, David is later in his career as king, but he's also later in his career as a military leader. And he has established himself as a strong military force in the middle of a whole lot of other enemies. That was what the entire last chapter that we looked at talked about

with all of his defeat of the Philistines. And he had now surrounded himself with enemies that he had defeated, but he always knew in the back of his mind those enemies could rise up against him. And rather than trusting in God, he was going to trust in his army. Therefore, he had, all of his military men numbered so that he could have an army that he could trust in.

And it's interesting because in the book of Jeremiah, it says some trust in chariots and some trust in horses, but we should trust in the name of the Lord our God. And so David has this problem of unbelief. Well, John Korsnoff and his commentary, of course, pointed out that pride and unbelief can find themselves most manifest in our lives with a lack of prayer. And I got to tell you, talk about shot through the heart, right?

That'll get you right where you are. Because those two sins can most clearly be seen in our lives when we find ourselves thinking that we really don't need to pray about it because we've got this one under control for ourselves. And this is where David found himself late in his career. He found himself not believing God, putting pride in himself, and he does something he should have never done.

And he has all of the people numbered. And so Joab eventually gives in to the will of the king. After all, he is the king. It says the king's word prevailed against Joab. Therefore Joab departed and he went throughout all Israel. And he came to Jerusalem. Joab gave the number, verse 5, of the census of all the people to David. And all Israel were 1,100,000 men who drew the sword.

And Judah was 407. 70,000 men who drew the sword. But he didn't number Levi. He didn't number Benjamin among them. For the king's command was abhorrent to Joab. In other words, Joab didn't really finish the job because it was abhorrent to him. It's interesting to find out from other sources that it would have taken Joab about 10 months to do this. Almost a year.

Which means that for every day that went by, David had the opportunity to repent. And he didn't. But can we all just agree that once sin has become an option, you have no other option. You've already lost the battle. Once sin becomes an option in our lives, you've lost the battle. That's why it can never become an option for the child of God. And so, David finds himself sinning in this way.

But I want you to notice what happens in verse 7. God was displeased with this thing. And so he struck. He struck Israel. And David said to God, I have sinned greatly and that I have done this thing. But now please take away the iniquity of your servant. For I have done very foolishly. For all of David's failures that he had in his life, we can sometimes ask ourselves,

how can a man like that still be called a man after God's own heart? How can a man who gave into pride and had 10 months to repent of that thing, and still didn't do it, one of the most unspiritual men living in Israel at the time, said this feels like a bad idea, and he still didn't pick up on it. How can a man like that still be called a man after God's own heart? I read a wonderful quote about this.

It says, David's character is not seen in his failures, but in his actions after the failure. David's character is not revealed in his failures, but in the actions that take place after the failures. And can I quote one of the most godly men that I've known in my entire life? His name is Robbie Nichols. He said, Ryan, you have to remember, it's not always about how you act,

it's about how you react. And that has stuck with me, and will probably stick with me for the rest of my life. Because in the moment you may find yourself failing, the important thing is you don't live in the failure. Once you have seen the sin in your life, you repent. And that's what David did. There's a verse that has troubled me in this section this week.

And it's in verse seven. Maybe it'll trouble you for a second, too. I'm going to allow it to. It says, God was displeased with this thing, so he struck Israel. What does that mean? What does it mean that he struck Israel? We don't find that God actually lays out any consequences until after David repents. We don't find that there was some pestilence that went through the land,

there was some famine that went through the land. We don't find any of those kinds of things until after this sin that David committed. So what does he mean when he says, God, struck Israel? Well, who was the representative for the nation of Israel? David. What did he strike David with? The heaviest conviction you can imagine. So heavy that after David, living in this sin

for almost a year, found himself saying, I have sinned greatly in that I have done this thing. You see, David was an incredibly passionate human being, and I think he was sensitive. And he was. And because he was sensitive to the Holy Spirit, and because he was sensitive to the Spirit, God struck David. Maybe not with some sort of pestilence, probably not with some sort of a disease,

not with some sort of sickness. I think he struck him with the most broken heart that you can imagine. And I think he probably woke up one morning and went, what have I done? And his heart was just crushed because of sin in his life. Can I tell you that as believers in Jesus Christ, we will never live a perfect life. We will never be able to be somebody who makes it

through the rest of our lives unscathed because of sin. And one of the things that you learn as you continue to walk with Jesus and continue to grow in the Lord is, you're gonna go through ups and downs, and sometimes you're gonna make the right decision, and sometimes you're gonna make the wrong decision. The important thing is when you make the right decision, you give all the glory to Jesus. And when you make the wrong decision, you run back to Jesus.

And that's exactly what David does here. I think God struck him so heavily with conviction that he may as well struck him, may as well have struck him because I think his heart was so broken that he went, why didn't I listen to Joab? Never thought I'd say that before. Why didn't I listen to the truth? Why did I allow pride to win? Why did I allow unbelief to overcome me?

Lord, I have sinned greatly against you. And so he repents, and I want you to notice what God does. It says, the Lord spoke to Gad, David's seer, saying, go and speak to David. Saying, thus says the Lord, I offer you three things. Choose for yourself one of them, which I will do to you. So Gad came to David and said to him, thus says the Lord, take for yourself

either three years of famine, three months to be swept away by your foes while the sword of your enemies overtakes you, or three days of the sword of the Lord, even pestilence in the land, and the angel of the Lord destroying throughout all the territory of Israel. Now therefore, consider what answer I shall return to him who sent me. Now, I believe that God forgave David, obviously, but here's the thing. While God forgives sin in our lives, there are still consequences to sin in our lives.

A good friend of mine that's a pastor always says it like this. He says, you can choose your sin, you just can't choose your consequences, except in this one instance. He did get to choose his consequences. But for the most part, we can choose our sin, but we can't choose our consequences. And God will forgive and God will restore, but that doesn't mean that there's

unintended collateral damage. And that's exactly what we're gonna find. So God offers him three things. Number one, you can have three years of famine. David Guzik in his commentary pointed out that this would have been the easiest one for David and his family to be insulated from. Because David and his family could have been insulated from the famine in their life.

After all, they were the wealthiest in the land. And if anyone was gonna always be taken care of, it was gonna be the king. The second thing is he said you can have three months of running from your enemies while the sword potentially devours. Again, David was a mighty man of war. He had great warriors that was surrounding him, clearly a very good army, probably about as protected as you could possibly be.

He said, or there could be three days of pestilence. This is the only one that David and his family could not insulate themselves from. This is the only one that David knew could potentially touch the people that he loved the most. And so what did he choose? He chose the one that could potentially affect him. And he chose it, not only because he was a great shepherd,

but he chose it for a second reason. Notice what he says in verse 13. David said to Gad, I'm in great distress. Please let me fall into the hand of the Lord, for his mercies are very great. But do not let me fall into the hand of man. That is a man that lived his life knowing his God. You see, that is the benefit of God. The benefit of having walked with God his entire life

is because he knew the character of God and he knew the nature of God. And as he knew the character and the nature of God, he said, listen, let me fall into the hands of God because he is a merciful God. Is chastisement gonna come? Yes, because as scripture tells us, whom God loves, he chastens, and he disciplines each of us as sons and daughters, but each of us as his children.

But I'd rather fall into the hands of a merciful God than to fall into the hands of an unmerciful enemy. It's interesting because yesterday morning, I was reading in the book of James, James chapter two, verse three, and at the very end of James chapter two, verse three, it says this. It says, mercy triumphs over judgment. I remember when I was in Bible college, there was a girl that went to school there.

Her name is now Amy Spies. Wonderful, wonderful friend of mine, her and her husband both. And she wrote this fantastic, amazing song when we were in Bible college, and it was just simply called Mercy Triumphs Over Judgment. And so as I read that yesterday, and as I read this, that song went through my head. And it's such a fascinating chorus that she put together about that

because it's just true in our lives. And brothers and sisters, can I just tell you, whatever it is, wherever you find yourself, the best place to be is to fall back into the hands of a merciful God, even if the hands of that merciful God, bring you chastening in your life, because it's better to be chastened by a God who loves you for your best than it is to face the consequences of an enemy that hates you. And so David says, I'm in great distress. Let me fall into the hands of the Lord.

It says in verse 14, so the Lord sent a pestilence on Israel and 70,000 men of Israel fell. This feels decently unfair, doesn't it? Here's David, the one who performed this census, the one who sinned against God, the one who chose the consequences, and his rear end got saved while 70,000 people were killed. I want to point out two things to you. Number one, sin always has unintended consequences.

It's just a fact of life. Sin always has unintended consequences, and whether we like it or not, the bomb that goes off in our hands, will always affect the people that are around us, because that's what sin does. We love to try to cut it down and be like, nope, it only affects me until we realize, nope, it affects the people around me too. The second thing that I would point out to you is this.

I want to remind you of why this whole thing started. Matter of fact, go over to 2 Samuel 24 real quick. It'll just take you a second. Go to your left. I'm in 1 Samuel, wrong book. That's going to say something completely different. 2 Samuel 24. I want you to look at verse 1. It says, Now the anger of the Lord burned against Israel. Why did 70,000 people die?

Partly because of the sin of David. Partly because of the sin of the nation of Israel. And so we have to remember that when we read stories like this, that God was bringing judgment on Israel for something that they had done, but it affected David as well. But can I tell you, both as a parent, and as a pastor, when people hurt, you hurt. Like you'd rather endure it yourself

than to watch other people go through it. You'd rather have to endure it yourself than to see other people have to live through it. Because when you're a shepherd, you feel the pain of people. It's one of the blessings of the job. Is that you get to feel the pain of other people, and you would really just as soon go through it yourself than to have to watch somebody else go through it.

It's just all that there is to it. And I've seen that as a pastor, I've definitely seen it as a parent, because I would much rather have had to go through some of the things that my girls have gone through than to watch them go through it and be an innocent, be a helpless bystander. And I believe that it hurt David as much to watch his people hurt than it would have if it would have hurt him personally. And so 70,000 of the nation of Israel died that day.

And I want you to know, that's a lot. It's a lot. It's a lot. It's a lot. It's a lot. Now you have to acknowledge that the angel who died that day, and I want you notice what it says. Verse 15. God sent the angel to Jerusalem to destroy it. But as he was about to destroy it, the LORD saw and was sorry over the calamity. And he said to the destroying angel, it is enough now relax your hand,

and the angel of the LORD was standing by the threshing floor of Ornan the Jebusite. And David lifted up his eyes and he saw the angel of the LORD standing between earth and heaven with his sword drawn in his hand, sackcloth fell on their faces. David said to God, is it not I who commanded to count the people? Indeed, I am the one who has sinned and done very wickedly. But these sheep, what have they done?

Oh Lord, my God, please let your hand be against me and my father's house, but not against your people, that they should be plagued. I don't write a lot of notes in the margin of my Bible because I can't read them usually after I'm done. But I wrote a note in the margin of my Bible here, and I just simply wrote the heart of a shepherd. You see, the heart of a shepherd sees his people hurt and says, can't this stop now? I should be the one dealing with this, not them. And David

intercedes for the people in this moment. And can I tell you, the heart of the shepherd that we see in David is amplified by the heart of the great shepherd that we see in Jesus. Only he didn't just ask that it would be upon him and not upon his people. He actually took it upon him instead of his people. See, that's the sacrifice of Jesus right there. That's the heart of the shepherd who saw God's judgment that was about to come upon us

and said, Lord, not upon them. Pour it out on me. Our greater David did that for us. And so the hand of the Lord stopped at the threshing floor of Ornan, the Jebusite, just outside of Jerusalem. And so notice what it says. Because now there's going to be a sacrifice that's made. It says, So David went up at the word of Gad, which he spoke in the name of the Lord.

And Ornan turned back and saw the angel and his four sons who were with him hid themselves. And Ornan was threshing wheat, which can I just tell you, if I saw the angel of the Lord with his thorn drawn standing there too, I'd stop what I was doing and hide myself. That would have to be the most terrifying thing in the world. And as David came to Ornan, Ornan looked and saw David and he went out from the threshing floor and he prostrated himself before David with his face to the ground. David said, give me the side of this threshing floor that I may build on it an altar

to the Lord. For the full price, you shall give it to me that the plague may be restrained from my people. And Ornan said to David, take it for yourself and let my Lord the King do what is good in his sight. So I will give the oxen for the burnt offerings. The threshings, sledges for wood, the wheat for the grain offering. I will give it all. This, this guy just

saw, basically just saw God, right? And it wasn't a good sight for him. He's like, listen, whatever it takes to stop this thing, you just take it. You can have the threshing floor. You can have the sledges for wood. I'll give you the oxen. I'll give you the wheat. Let's just deal with this situation. Okay. I will give all of that to you. I want you to notice what David says.

But King David, verse 24 said this, no, but I will surely buy it for the full price. Take what is yours for the Lord or offer a burnt offering, which costs me nothing. That verse has sort of been living rent free in my head this week. Because, because I find it interesting that David says, if I'm going to perform an act of worship to the Lord, it should be a sacrifice for me. We don't live in an era with a lot of

sacrifice. We don't live in an era where people want to sacrifice anything, right? Like, like if it's going to cost me something, I'm going to have to really decide whether or not it's worth it. But what we have to realize is about our walk with Jesus Christ, about a true surrender of our lives to the Lord is that there really is a living sacrifice. And we don't always view it that way.

We sell the gospel as, you know, well, I'm just going to live this peaceful life now. And I'm just going to have the love of Jesus flow all over me. Don't get me wrong. That's true. You'll have the peace of God. You'll have the love of God. You'll have the grace of God. But we must if anyone would follow me, he must deny himself, take up his cross and follow me. That means a life

of sacrifice on this side of eternity. That's exactly what a life with Jesus Christ is. It's a life of sacrifice. That's why Jesus says no one who put his hand to the plow and looks back is worthy of following me because you got to be willing to lay it all down. You got to be willing to lay it all aside. You got to be willing to give it all up if you're going to follow Jesus.

That's why the disciples were like, Jesus, this is kind of some hard talk you're using here. And Jesus says, I know. I know it's hard. But that's what following me looks like. That's what a life of sacrifice is really intended to be. And in our Western culture church, we don't always like to think about that. You know, I think about our friends and brothers and sisters that are living

in other countries that literally for them to carry a Bible is actually a sacrifice potentially of their own life. And I think about that. I think about that. I think about that. I think about that. I think about that. I think about that. I think about that. For them to own a Bible is potentially a sacrifice of their own life. My office would be a killing field, right? That thing is full

of Bibles. But that's the sacrifice. And we think, oh, but if I make this sacrifice, I'll never have any joy in my life. And what you actually find is the people that make the greatest sacrifices, they actually have the most joy in their lives. I read this book. I think it's called This is the Church in North Korea. I read this several years back now. And do you know that the church in North

Korea prays for us? If you don't know this, the church in North Korea is like probably one of the most oppressed churches in the world. We just don't know very much about it because it's such a close country. Human rights atrocities we can't imagine take place there. And they're praying for us. Why? Because they have great joy because every day they know their only hope is Jesus.

It's not their things. It's not their money. It's because they don't know their money. It's because they don't have any of that stuff. They know every day is an opportunity to be martyred or abused for their faith. And yet they are full of the joy of the Lord. And so they pray for the Western culture church. Then we'll figure out what joy really looks like. That joy is found in the sacrifice.

And that's what David says. I'm not going to offer something that doesn't cost me anything. I need this to be a sacrifice. I need skin in the game. It says, It's fascinating because David offers two types of offerings there. I'm going to point these out again. I've done it several times. He offers a burnt offering. He offers a peace offering. He offers a burnt offering. He offers a peace offering. He offers a burnt offering.

The burnt offering dealt with his sin. The peace offering dealt with fellowship because you can't have fellowship with God unless you deal with your sin against God. That's why the thing that you have to do in your daily prayer time is to have a time of confession before you and the Lord so that you can clear out your heart so that you can really have fellowship with God. And so he restores that fellowship. And I love this because God answers. And how does God answer? He answers with fire from

heaven. Okay. This is another one of those things that I've talked about. I've talked about this scene. I want to watch on DVR. Okay. I can't help it. I want to see fire come out of heaven and consume a sacrifice because that would be the craziest scene I can imagine. That's what it says. Fire came from heaven. Thing was, thing was ate up. God's like done. And while we may never

see that happen in our lifetime, can I tell you from experience that, that I've seen God show up when I get my heart right with him, that, that I've, that I've seen the presence of the Holy Spirit be incredibly powerful when I finally deal with my sin. I've seen God show up when I get my business, when I own my, my garbage that I need to own and I get that right with God. And I truly have fellowship with God again, that the, that the Holy Spirit who's, who's kind of like a, kind of like a fire comes down and consumes me. See, that's kind of what happens when we get our hearts right with the Lord. The Holy Spirit shows up in really big and powerful ways. And so, so God shows up,

everything's dealt with. It says in the Lord commanded the angel to put his sword back in its sheath. And at that time, when David saw that the Lord had answered on the threshing floor of Ornan the Jebusite, he offered sacrifice there for the tabernacle of the Lord, which Moses had made in the wilderness, the altar of burnt offering were in the high place of giving at that time. But David did not go before it to inquire of the Lord, for he was terrified by the sword of the angel of the Lord. And then David said, I know I'm breaching the next chapter, but it's important for

the last chapter. Then David said, this is the house of the Lord God. And this is the altar of burnt offering for Israel. All of this took place at the threshing floor of Ornan the Jebusite. Now, I don't know about you, but a lot of times when I think of a threshing floor, I think about something low because it's called, it's called a floor. But that's not where

a threshing floor was. The threshing floor was actually on a mountaintop because they would toss the grain up in the air. The wind would drive away the chaff. The grain would fall back down. So it was on a pretty high place. Do you know, do you know where the threshing floor of Ornan the Jebusite was? I'm glad you asked. It's at the top of what we call Mount Moriah. There's three very significant things about Mount Moriah. The first

really significant thing about Mount Moriah or the threshing floor of Ornan the Jebusite is that it's the exact same spot where Abraham offered Isaac. The second thing that's fascinating about the threshing floor of Ornan the Jebusite is it will become the place where Solomon will build his temple.

Because David said, this is the house of the Lord God. And this is the altar of burnt offering for Israel. There's a third incredibly significant thing about this mountain. We're told in the book of Isaiah that this mountain will be where Jesus will return to rule and to reign. It's actually on the same mountain ridge, just down the ridge from there is another mountain that's very significant to us as believers in Jesus Christ. It's called Golgotha or the place of the skull.

Not the same mountain, just down the ridge from it. And that's where Jesus was crucified. It's a pretty fascinating area in the nation of Israel. And isn't it wonderful how God redeems something so horrific as David sinning in pride and unbelief, 70,000 men of the nation of Israel being put to death, and yet God redeems it and turns it into a spot where the people would worship God.

because once again, we see that God redeems the worst of circumstances for his good. So we come now to chapter 22. And in chapter 22, David is gonna begin the process of making preparations for the building of the temple. Notice what it says in verse two. So David gave orders to gather the foreigners who were in the land of Israel. He set stone cutters to hew out stones

to build the house of God. And David prepared large quantities of iron to make the nails for the doors of the gates and for the clamps and more bronze than could be weighed. The timbers of cedar logs beyond number for the Sidonians and the Tyrians brought large quantities of cedar timber to David. David said, my son Solomon is young and inexperienced. And the house that is to be built for the Lord

shall be exceedingly magnificent, famous and glorious throughout all the land. Therefore now I will make preparation for it. So David made ample preparations before his death. I love this because David says, listen, my son's coming. I can't build the temple. We'll deal with that in just a minute. I can't build the temple, but I can do everything I can to make sure that things are prepared.

So the first thing he does is he gathers the workforce. He gathers the foreigners that were living in the land, those that they ultimately should have driven out, but they stayed in the land and they became forced labor. He said, I'm gonna give you guys a real job to do. You're gonna be the ones who hew out the stone and make the nails and the clamps and all the things that need to be done.

And he said, I'm gonna give you guys a real job to do. So he raises this workforce to do all of the building. Second thing he does is he begins to gather all of the things and he gathers the bronze, he gathers the cedar timbers, he gathers all of the materials that are gonna be needed for the building of this temple. And why does he do it? He says, because my son Solomon,

he's young and he's inexperienced. He's still new at this whole thing. He's not even king yet. And he's gonna need wisdom and he's gonna need discernment and he's gonna need some help. So I'm gonna do everything that I can to give him everything that he needs to prepare for the building of the temple. As I was reading this and as I was thinking about it, I thought, isn't it fascinating

that David wanted to prepare the next generation to be those who would seek the Lord. And I think that's really important for us to pay attention to. You see, throughout scripture, there is this continual call to prepare the next generation. To prepare the next generation to not only know God, but to carry on the work of God. Started back in the law, remember?

Over and over again, they would say, recite these things to your kids. Tell these things to your kids. When they ask questions, you can answer them. Give the next generation everything that they need so that they know how to worship the Lord. It's repeated over and over again throughout the law, throughout all of their wilderness wanderings, up to the time when they come into the land,

they've crossed the border, they've crossed the Jordan River, and they build the mound of rocks, the Ebenezer stones, why? So that when the kids ask, what's with the huge pile of rocks? You can say God was faithful. Because you're to continue to prepare the next generation, not only to know God, but to carry on the work of the Lord. And that is the continual call.

And if you want to see a healthy church, it means you have to keep prepared. You have to keep preparing the next generation. I've said it before, and I will continue to say it because I think it's the most important thing that we can do. You should be finding kids, you should be finding young people, young parents, young moms, young dads, kids that are in Sunday school classes, kids that are in youth group, and you should be doing everything that you can to pour into them, to prepare the next generation.

I believe that grandmas and grandpas are some of the best Sunday school teachers. You know why? Because grandmas and grandpas have lived a lot of life. And you've seen God do a lot of great things. And it's a wonderful thing because you can share all of the things that God has taught you with this next generation. Because there is no such thing as I'm too old to be used by God.

There is no such thing as I can no longer be used by God. It may look different than it did 20 years ago, but God still wants to use it. You know why? God still wants to use you. Because the things that God has taught you, no one else can teach the next generation except you. So begin to find the people to pour into, these young people in the church. And I'm here to tell you right now,

down at that end of the hallway and down at the end of that brand new building, there's a bunch of them, right? This is why we're doing two Christmas Eve services. It's because we go, dude, if all the kids are gonna be in here too, oh my gosh, right? There's gonna be a bunch of them. Because there's a bunch of tiny people in this church. And they need people.

They need grandmas and grandpas and moms and dads that have walked with Jesus to share with them the things that they've been taught over the years. One of my favorite Sunday school teachers of all time is Brenda McKinley. She was one of my favorites. And I have things in my office that I did in Brenda McKinley's Sunday school class when I was in the fifth grade.

Mom found a bunch of that stuff for me not long ago. And it's so wonderful. Because I look back on that and we learned together. She will tell you this. She would tell you this when we get to heaven. She's gonna tell you this. We all learned together. And she taught us things about God. And it was such a great time. You know why? Because she said, I wanna invest in the next generation.

And I think that that's what we need to make sure that we're doing. It's good for them. It's good for you. Anyway. So David prepares everything for Solomon before his death. Then he gives a charge to Solomon. Notice what he says. He says, then he called for his son Solomon and he charged him to build a house for the Lord God of Israel. And David said to Solomon, my son,

I had intended to build a house to the name of the Lord my God. But the word of the Lord came to me saying, you've shed much blood and have waged great wars. You shall not build a house to my name because you have shed so much blood on the earth before me. Behold, a son will be born to you and he shall be a man of rest. And I will give him rest from all of his enemies

on every side for his name shall be Solomon. And I will give him peace and quiet or I will give peace and quiet to Israel in his days. He shall build a house for my name and he shall be my son and I will be his father. And I will establish the three nations. He shall be a great ruler over Israel forever. I hadn't thought about this. John Corson pointed it out,

but it really resonated with me. How did David get to a place where he was content with the fact that he would not build God a temple? Clearly it was a great desire of his heart. He came up with it. He's passionate about it. He's making all the preparations for it. But now he comes to a place where he has accepted that that's not his role. He said God showed up to me and he told me,

you are a man of bloodshed. You are a man of bloodshed. You have shed much blood for me on the earth, and so you cannot be the one that builds me a temple. When did God tell David that? Have you ever asked yourself that question? That's a completely different thing. Not completely different in that it disagrees with, but completely different in that these are details we don't read in 2 Samuel when he wants to build him a temple.

We don't read those details there. Where did those details come from? Well, do you remember what happened when David said, I want to build a house for the Lord? God said, not your job. That's not what I want you to do. Instead, what I'm going to do is I'm going to build you a house. And when God gave David the promise, what we call the Davidic covenant, there's this very interesting verse.

It says that David went and sat before the Lord. How did David know that God said? You can't build this house because you're a man of bloodshed. How did David know that God said, you can't build this house because you have waged great wars. Instead, your son Solomon is going to build it. Where did those details come from? They came when David sat before the Lord.

And can I tell you, this hit me like a ton of bricks today. I read that and I thought, that's a pretty important thing to do. It's pretty important to sit before the Lord. Because when you sit before the Lord, He teaches you things. And He tells you things that you wouldn't hear any other way. There's a book that just came out, and I'm looking forward to buying it and reading it.

And it says, it's called Stop in the Name of God. It's by Charlie Kirk. It's the last book that he wrote right before his death. And it's all about the importance of shutting everything off and truly taking a Sabbath day. And can I just confess something to you all? I'm not going to. I'm not good at that. I'm not good at just taking a Sabbath day. I actually fail in that quite a bit.

Somebody says, what's your day off? And I'm like, well, it's supposed to be Friday, but it's rarely Friday. I'm having one soon. But it's rarely Friday. And I'm not good at doing that. And so when I read that today, and I've probably said this before, and I keep disobeying God in it. When I read that today, I thought, there's certain things in my life, and I know this to be true.

I taught this to an entire group of kids at FCA camp. There are certain things in your life, there are certain things in my life that I cannot learn unless I sit with the Lord.

Unless I sit and listen to what he has to say to me. And shut it all off. And truly be tuned in with him. That's when David realized, I'm a man of bloodshed. My job was to win the war. Solomon's job is to build the house. And he surrendered to it. He said, Solomon, this is now your job. And so I want you to notice what he tells Solomon. He says in verse 11.

Now my son, the Lord be with you that you may be successful. You build the house of the Lord your God, just as he has spoken concerning you. Oh, and the Lord give you discretion and understanding, and give you charge over Israel, so that you may keep the law of the Lord your God. Then you will prosper if you are careful to observe the statutes and the ordinances which the Lord commanded Moses concerning Israel.

Be strong and courageous. Do not fear nor be dismayed. And behold, with great pains I have prepared the house of the Lord. A hundred thousand talents of gold, or a million talents of silver, bronze and iron beyond weight, for they are in great quantity. Also timber and stone I have prepared. You may add to them. Moreover, there are many. There are many workmen with you, stonecutters and masons and carpenters and all men who are skillful in every kind of work.

Of the gold and the silver and the bronze and the iron, there is no limit. Arise and work, and may the Lord be with you. I think everything that he tells Solomon is summed up in that last phrase. Arise and work, because the Lord is going to be with you. He says, you've got a great task. Do it. Keep obeying God. Keep following God. Keep following God. Stay focused.

Stay on the task. But he doesn't just give Solomon a charge to do this. He charges all of the leaders to help him. Notice what he says in verse 17. And David also commanded all the leaders of Israel to help his son Solomon, saying, Is not the Lord your God with you? And has he not given you rest on every side? For he has given the inhabitants of the land into my hand.

The land is subdued before the Lord and before his people. Now, set your heart and your soul to seek the Lord your God. Arise, therefore, and build the land. Build the sanctuary of the Lord, so that you may bring the ark of the covenant of the Lord and the holy vessels of God into the house that is to be built for the name of the Lord. He says, you guys need to come along and help, because this is too much for one guy to do.

You need to come alongside him and help, but you need to do two things. Did you pay attention to that? The very last verse, he says, seek the Lord with all of your heart and soul, and then do the work. There's a principle within Christianity. There's a principle that I didn't come up with. I didn't come up with it with myself, but I've read it a lot, and it's this.

There are two things involved in the service of the Lord. There's the work of the heart, and there's the work of the hand. You can't do the work of the hand until you've first done the work of the heart. But once you've done the work of the heart, the only thing left is to do the work of your hand. In other words, you have to seek the Lord first, because you can't give out what you don't have.

But once you have sought the Lord, it's time to get off your... knees in prayer and start to put on your boots to get to work. You see, there are usually two types of people in the world. There are the people that like to do the work of the heart, and there are people that like to do the work of the hand. There are some people that don't like to take time to seek God.

They just want to go to work. I just want to lace up the boots and do the work, and God's like, that's great. Sit for a few minutes. Sit for a few minutes, and let me speak to your heart so you know what you're supposed to do. And then there's some people that only want to do the work of the heart. They never actually want to get to the work. They love the journaling.

They love the reading. They love the praying. But they don't like the lacing up of the boots and the grabbing of the tools. They just want to do the work of the heart. They both have to be done. Brothers and sisters, I'm going to tell you something right now. It's a word for me, and it's a word for you. God has a great work that he wants to continue to do here in this church.

God has a great work that he wants to continue to do in this community and in this county. And it's going to require two things of all of us, because the work is too great for me. Number one, it's going to require the work of the heart. I want to challenge all of you with something. I wasn't planning on saying this, but what the hey, we're here, right? I want to challenge you with something.

I want to challenge you to begin to pray for the community of Arc City, for the community of Winfield and Dexter and all of Cali County. Let's start there. And I want you to really commit yourself to pray that God would move in this county. That God would move in the hearts of the young and the old. That God would move in the hearts of those that seem the farthest away from the Lord

because they do the things that look like they're the farthest away from the Lord. And I want you to pray for the people that look like they're close to the Lord, but their problem is self-righteousness. I want you to start praying for all of it. That God would do the work that needs to be done in this county. But then when God gives you the mission, as you do the work of the heart,

get off your feet. Get off your rear end and do it. Start to do what God has called you to do. Because God doesn't call anyone to just warm a chair in a church. There is no spiritual gift of chair warming. And God has something that only you can do. And listen, the harvest is ripe, but the laborers are few. Before I went to work doing this other thing that I'm doing now,

with Fellowship of Christian Athletes, I counseled with a pastor over in eastern Kansas. His name is Gary Larson, fantastic man of God. I love him to death. And I said, what made you decide to go to work for Fellowship of Christian Athletes? Because he's a pastor as well. He has a similar sized church. I said, what made you want to do that? And he said, my wife and I realized something.

We realized that there's a really great harvest out there, but they're not sitting in our church. And so we can either wait for the harvest to show up in the doors of our church, or we can go take it. We decided to go take it. And that's pretty much what sealed the deal for me. I was like, yep, it's time to go take it. Brothers and sisters, you can't wait for the harvest to show up to the front doors of this church.

You need to go take it. You can either get involved, or you can sit back and watch other people do it. As for me, I'd rather get involved and go take it. Amen? Father, we come before you now, and Lord, I thank you for what you do in our hearts and our lives through your word. And God, I pray that you would continue to convict us. Lord, show us the areas of pride and unbelief in our heart.

Lord, show us the things that are keeping us from you, where that sin, Lord, separates us. But Lord, I pray also that as you give us those repentant hearts and our fellowship is restored with you, that you would show us the harvest. Lord, I pray that you would give us hearts to pray. Lord, I pray that you would show us the harvest. you would give us hearts to work.

So, Lord, move in our hearts, we pray. In Jesus' name. Amen. Be blessed.