FBC Daily Devotional – January 27, 2022

Faith Baptist Church

Subscribe

Download

Share

00

00:06

Well, good Thursday morning to you. How are you doing this week? Things going well? Are you staying healthy?

00:11

Are you getting better? I trust your week is going well for you. Well today we're reading in First Chronicles 19 through 21 and a couple of different things

00:21

I want to bring out. You remember the other day in earlier in First Chronicles, our reading in First Chronicles, where David went to an advisor and said

00:30

I wanted to build a temple for the Lord and Nathan, his advisor, said go for it.

00:36

But then Nathan, the spiritual advisor, had to come back to David and say no you're not to do this.

00:42

Don't don't move forward and do this. And David listened to that advisor. He accepted that advice and it was a it was a wonderful.

00:51

It was a good move. It was the thing to do. He listened to good advice.

00:56

He followed good advice and God blessed that good advice. Well today we see just the opposite.

01:03

We see a case where somebody listened to some advisors and that advice wasn't very good.

01:09

We need to be careful whose advice we listen to. So here is this

01:15

King of Ammon that died and his son Nahash, he died and his son Hanun ascended the throne.

01:22

Now David, King David of Israel and Nahash, the King of Ammon, they got along famously.

01:28

They did they had a good relationship with each other. They kept peace with one another and and so when

01:35

Nahash died David wanted to send, you know, condolences and a congratulatory message to to Hanun, Nahash's son, the new king.

01:47

So off these messengers go sent from David to see Hanun, the new king of the

01:54

Ammonites. Well Hanun has some advisors that say to him, do you think, do you think

02:01

David really has good intentions here? He doesn't have good intentions. He wants to see where you're vulnerable.

02:06

He wants to see where your weaknesses are. These guys are really just spies. They've come to spy out the land and and they're gonna go back to David and next thing you know, we're gonna get attacked by the

02:17

Israelites. You just mark my words. And so Hanun listened to the advice of these advisors and he ended up treating the messengers shamefully.

02:29

He humiliated them. And the result was that David did launch a campaign against the

02:37

Ammonites to to retaliate for the shameful treatment of these messengers who came in peace and wanted only to offer peace and goodwill.

02:50

So it's critical I think to listen to the right kind of advisors. So again, as I asked the other day when we closed, you know, who who are your counselors?

03:01

To whom do you listen? What direction are they taking you? Are they taking you in a path that will deepen your relationship with God and a walk on a godly path?

03:14

Or would they steer you away from that? Be careful the advisors you listen to.

03:21

Well, the other thing I wanted to bring out in this passage that we read today has to do with David and in what we read in chapter 21.

03:31

So, you know in chapter 21 what's going on? David decides he wants to find out how many men of military age are there in his kingdom.

03:45

So he calls Joab, his commander, the commander of his forces, and he says I want you to go through the entire land of Israel from Dan to Beersheba and count everybody so I can know how many warriors

03:59

I have at my disposal. Joab objects to this and rightly so because this was prohibited.

04:09

God prohibited this kind of thing and Joab says I don't you know, no, this is bad thing. This is a bad thing to do.

04:15

Don't do this. And David, no, do it. You know, he's adamant. You're gonna do this and off he goes.

04:22

Now, see, here's the problem. Here's the problem. David had achieved great success and he came to a point in his rule as the king where it's like, you know, everything everything turned out well for him.

04:39

It came up roses, if you will. He had succeeded in squashing the rebellion of Absalom.

04:46

He's just had good success in bringing the kingdom together and expanding the kingdom. It's become a prosperous kingdom and all the rest of this.

04:54

He's known success in every battle that he's waged and so forth. And now he's kind of resting on his laurels.

05:01

If you will, he's developed a sense of pride and an arrogance that insists that he can do what he wants to do regardless of good advice, godly advice to the contrary.

05:17

And when we get to that point where we where we are so arrogant that we insist on having our way, even if that way is wrong, then we're we are quite vulnerable to Satan's assaults and the consequences that come from yielding to those assaults.

05:40

And there were some significant consequences for David to to deal with. As a result of that sin of numbering the people,

05:48

God brought judgment upon the nation. Because of David thousands of people were affected.

05:57

Thousands of people died and their families grieved because of the sin of David.