David's Desire to Seek the Lord — Chuck Smith

【Romans 6 on Immaculate Conception】. What to Trinity. Nation. In the second chapter of Romans he said, oh how happy is the man to whom God does not impute sin. That man who's believing and trusting in Jesus Christ, though he may be weak and frail and even stumbling, as he is trusting in the Lord, loving our Lord Jesus Christ, God doesn't impute iniquity to him.

Satan as the Accuser of Believers

Paul goes on in the latter portion of Romans chapter 8 and says, if God be for us, who can be against us? The next question Paul asked was, who shall lay anything to the charge of God's elect? Who's going to make a list against you?

Who's going to make a list of your failures, of your shortcomings? Well, Satan is compiling a list. The Bible calls him the accuser of the brethren. We see him in that role in the book of Job as he appears before God.

And God says, hey where you been? He says, oh going around the earth. Have you considered my servant Job? Hey he's a good man, upright. He loves good, he hates evil. Oh yeah, but man, he's a mercenary.

Anybody would serve you if you bless them like that. Let me take away those things you've given him and that man will curse you to your face. Accusing Job of being a mercenary. In the book of Revelation, when Satan is finally cast out of heaven, it says, whoa, whoa, whoa to the inhabitants of the earth.

For the dragon, the accuser of the brethren, is cast out. And he knows that he has a short time. Who accuses them, he said, before God day and night continually. Satan accuses you before God and then he accuses you to yourself.

He is quick to catch any flaw and to point it out. And the purpose of his accusation is to keep you from God. And usually it comes like this. Who do you think you are asking God to help you out of this mess when this mess is all your fault to begin with?

If you had not been so stupid and disobedient and done your own thing, then you'd be alright. Now that things are in such a mess, you want to ask God to help you. Great. Who do you think you are to ask God to help you now?

And you see, the whole purpose of it is to keep you from coming to God. Because he knows that God is so merciful and God is so gracious, the moment you come it's going to be all over. He's going to wash it away and it's going to be gone.

And so he tries to keep you from coming by these accusations. You're so weak. God isn't interested in you. You've failed him so many times. I don't blame him for throwing you out, you know. Not listening to you.

And he just accuses you and is constantly charging you. But you know, Paul answers his question not by declaring who is laying things to your charge. He's just telling you who isn't laying anything to your charge.

God's Justification and Christ's Intercession

And do you know who's not laying anything to your charge? God. Who is he that shall lay any charge against God? He said, it is God who has justified you. God's not keeping a list against you. God's not making charges against you.

God has declared you totally innocent of all charges. Why? Because of my love and my faith and my trust in Jesus Christ, who has paid the price for my forgiveness. Paul asks another question. Who is he that condemns?

Satan condemns. Your friends may condemn you. You may condemn yourself. But I know one who does not condemn you. Who is he that condemns? Paul says, well, I'll tell you who doesn't. It is Christ who has died, yea rather is risen again and is even at the right hand of the Father making intercession for you.

Not condemning you. He's interceding for you. Just the opposite of condemning. Glorious. God is for me. And then Paul finally says, who shall separate us from this love of Christ? Any names, anything and everything he can think of in the universe and something that maybe not even has been created yet.

Nothing Can Separate Believers from God's Love

I'm persuaded that neither height nor depth or principalities nor powers nor things present nor things to come nor any other created being is able to separate me from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus, my Lord.

Now you have to go back to the very first question that Paul asked in this series of questions and it was, what shall we say to these things? Glorious to be in Christ. Glorious to be a child of God. Glorious to have my sins forgiven and the penalty of my sin already born by Jesus Christ.

David Faces Judgment for Israel's Sin

So our position is completely different from that of David who lived prior to the blotting out through the blood of Jesus Christ. And thus there was the penalty to be enacted against Israel against God had the case in the beginning.

And the penalty that was enacted was a choice as far as David was concerned. You can have the seven years or three years, whichever is the correct number, of famine in the land. Or you can have three months in which your enemies prevail against you in the field of battle.

Or you can have three days of pestilence with the hand of God stretched out against the nation. The prophet Gad said to him, what shall I go tell the person who sent me? And David said unto Gad, I'm in a great strait.

Man, this is tough. But let us now fall into the hand of the Lord for his mercies are great. I don't want to fall into the hand of man. I'd rather fall into the hands of God than the hands of man. The hands of man can really rip you to pieces.

Man is unmerciful. So I know that God is merciful. Let me fall in the hands of God. So the Lord sent a pestilence upon Israel from the morning even to the time appointed. And there died of the people from Dan even to Beersheba seventy thousand men.

So there was a plague that struck Israel. The time appointed is thought to be three o 'clock in the afternoon. Seventy thousand of these men that he had numbered for battle, the Lord began to decimate his troops that he had just numbered.

God's Mercy Stops the Plague

And when the angel stretched out his hand upon Jerusalem to destroy it, the Lord repented him of the evil and said to the angel that destroyed the people, it's enough. Stay now your hand. And the angel of the Lord was by the threshing place of Arunah, the Jebusite, or as his name in Chronicles, Ornan, the Jebusite.

Now it repented the Lord. This again is a phrase that we have difficulty with because we are told that God is not a man that he should lie nor the son of man that he should repent. Hath he not spoken and shall he not make it good?

He said through the prophet Malachi, behold, I am the Lord. I change not. And repentance means change. Man, however, in describing the actions of the infinite God is bound to finite language. And we do not have a vocabulary or words that can adequately describe the actions of God, and thus we have to describe them with language, the words that we have.

Now here is the angel of God ready to stretch out his hand, and David, we read, saw this angel of the Lord with a sword drawn coming to Jerusalem. And suddenly the angel stopped. His hand was stained.

Now as the angel was coming with the seeming intent of destroying Jerusalem, and suddenly the change, the angel stopped, it would appear from the human standpoint that God changed his mind about destroying Jerusalem.

And thus it repented God. And so we are describing it from human language because here is the angel, looks like he is ready to strike. He doesn't strike, but in reality God never intended him to strike Jerusalem.

He was there in a threatening posture, but God doesn't change. God doesn't repent. But the apparent thing if you were looking at it from the human standpoint, you say, well, he was just ready to wipe out Jerusalem and he didn't, you know.

And so God changed his mind. No, that's not what happened. We have to use human language to define the actions of God. But God all the while was intending to spare Jerusalem. And so the angel of the Lord was there by the threshing place of Arunah, the Jebusite.

The Location of David's Jerusalem and the Threshing Floor

Now the city of David was actually on the hillside below what today is this old city of Jerusalem called the Hill of Ophel. And from where the Dung Gate is in Jerusalem today, on down that hillside going down to the spring of Gihon and the pool of Siloam and that whole hillside area was the city of Ophel, which was the city of Jerusalem in David's time.

Up where the Temple Mount stands today was outside of the city walls of David's time. So the angel was coming from the north section there and David was down there below in the city of Ophel, or the city of David, looking up back towards the north where the Temple Mount presently is, and he saw there the angel with a drawn sword.

And it was above the threshing floor of Arunah. And so David spake unto the Lord when he saw the angel that smote the people and he said, Lord, I have sinned and I have done wickedly. But these sheep, what have they done?

Let your hand, I pray thee, be against me and against my father's house. Lord, I'm the guilty one. And David here felt a great responsibility for what was happening to the people. And this is what made David such a great king.

David's Shepherd Heart and Responsibility for the People

He had the heart of a shepherd. He really had the people at heart. God, I'm the guilty one. I'm the one that sinned. I'm the one that's done so wickedly. These poor little sheep, they've not done anything, Lord.

Strike me. Strike my house. But oh, these sheep, Lord, they're innocent. They weren't, but in David's eyes they were. And he was pleading for the people. Again, acknowledging his sin, his wickedness. And Gad came that day to David and he said unto him, Go up and raise up an altar unto the Lord in the threshing floor of Arunah the Jebusite.

And so David, according to the saying of Gad, went up as the Lord commanded. And Arunah looked up and he saw the king and all of his servants coming on toward him. And Arunah went out and he bowed himself before the king on his face upon the ground.

And Arunah said, Why is my Lord the king come to his servant? And David said, To buy the threshing floor from you to build an altar unto the Lord that the plague may be stayed from the people. And Arunah said unto David, Let my Lord the king take and offer up what seems good unto him.

The Agricultural Work of a Threshing Floor

Behold, here are the oxen for the burnt sacrifice and the threshing instruments and the other instruments of the oxen for wood. Now the threshing floor was usually a flat rock. And they would take the oxen and they had sort of a sled that was made of wood and they would ride this sled over the top of the grain.

It would roll under the wooden slats. And as it rolled over the grain it would knock the husk off. And then knocking the husk off of the grain it was usually in an area that was open where there was a breeze and then they would throw the grain in the air and the husk would fly away and the grain would fall back down on the flat rock threshing floor.

And so up there on the side of Mount Moriah there was this flat rock area, the threshing floor of Arunah, where he had his oxen and the instruments for threshing, this type of a sled that they ran over the top of the grain.

Suddenly Arunah looks down towards the city gates and here comes the king and all of his mighty men. And he thinks, Wow! He's coming up the hill towards me. And he says, Why are you coming to my place?

David Refuses Costless Worship

And David said, I want to buy your threshing floor that I can build an altar here unto the Lord and offer a sacrifice. Arunah said, Hey, here is the oxen. Here is the wood. You go ahead and do it. No charge.

I'll give these things he said to the king. And he said, May God accept your sacrifice. May God accept you. And the king said to Arunah, No way. I will surely buy it of thee at a price. Neither will I offer burnt offerings unto the Lord my God of that which doth cost me nothing.

David realized that sacrifice is a sacrifice and if it doesn't cost you anything it's no sacrifice. I will not offer to the Lord that which cost me nothing. I won't give castoffs to God. David was very honorable in this, refusing to offer God something that didn't cost him.

So David bought the threshing floor and the oxen for 50 shekels of silver. And David built there an altar unto the Lord and he offered the burnt offerings and the peace offering and so the Lord was entreated for the land and the plague was stayed from Israel.

The Purchase of the Temple Site

So it stopped right there. It didn't come on down to the city of Jerusalem. Now in Chronicles it says that he bought for 600 shekels of gold. A vast difference between the 50 shekels of silver and 600 shekels of gold.

How come the discrepancy? You have to get into the Hebrew language actually to discover that it is not a discrepancy. Here David is buying from Arunah this threshing floor with the oxen itself for the 50 pieces of silver.

However, he then went ahead and purchased the burnt offerings, the whole field and house and everything else from the fellow. There are two Hebrew words. One is goron and the other is magum. And David gave the 50 shekels of silver for the goron, the threshing floor and the oxen.

But for the magum he went ahead then and paid the 500 shekels of gold. Having built there the altar unto the Lord, the plague was gone and the plague was stayed, it then came to David that this is the place to build the temple of God.

And so he bought the whole place in order that Solomon might then build the temple of God. And later on we read, and Solomon built the temple of God there on the place that David had purchased from Ornan, the field and all, the magum that he had purchased from Ornan.

The temple was then above the city. The people would look up and see the temple above them. Presently, of course, the site of the city of Jerusalem has been expanded. The walls of the city actually are pretty much outside of where the city of David was.

And the temple mount today is within the walls of the city of Jerusalem.

We'll return with more of our verse-by-verse venture through the Bible in our next lesson as we begin our study of 1 Kings. And we do hope you'll make plans to join us. But right now I'd like to remind you that if you missed any part of today's message or perhaps you'd like to order a copy for that special friend or loved one, you can do so by simply contacting one of our customer service representatives and they'd be more than happy to assist you with the ordering details.

Simply call 1 -800 -272-WORD and phone orders can be taken Monday through Friday 8 a .m. to 5 p .m. Pacific Time. Once again, our toll-free number is 1 -800 -272 -9673. And for your added convenience, you can order online anytime when you go to thewordfortoday .org.

And while you're there, be sure to browse through the additional resources that include Bible studies, commentaries, CDs, DVDs, and so much more. Once again, that's the word for today online at thewordfortoday .org.

And for those of you who still prefer to write, you can use our mailing address, which is The Word for Today, P .O. Box 8000, Costa Mesa, California 92628. And be sure to include the call letters of this station with your correspondence.

And now, on behalf of The Word for Today, we'd like to thank all of you who share in supporting this ministry with your prayers and financial support. And be sure to join us again next time as Pastor Chuck Smith begins his study of 1 Kings.

That's right here on the next edition of The Word for Today. And now, once again, here's Pastor Chuck Smith.

Putting the Word into Practice

May we now be doers of the Word and not hearers only, because that's self-deception. You've got to put it into practice for it to have any value in your life. Let the Spirit of God now minister to you its truth as He brings to your remembrance those things that we have studied and He enriches you in your walk and in your faith and in your life in Christ.

May the Lord be with you and bless you. Give you a good week. In Jesus' name.

Every year, Pastor Chuck gives his prophecy update to prepare Christians to be ready to give an answer for anyone who wants to know what the Bible has to say about the future. So it is with great excitement that The Word for Today presents to you this year's Maranatha 6 Conference entitled, The Forming Confederacy.

Join Pastor Chuck Smith, Mark Hitchcock, Don Stewart, Doug Hamp, and Eria Eldad, the former senior commander of the Israeli Defense Force, as they help us to comprehend and unravel scriptures pertaining to the imminent forming confederacy coming against the nation of Israel.

I encourage you, as fellow brothers and sisters in Christ, to become informed about what the Bible says about the signs of the times and prophecy being fulfilled right before our very eyes. For more information on how you can order the Maranatha 6 Prophecy Conference on DVD with a bonus mp3, call The Word for Today at 800 -272 -9673 or visit us online at thewordfortoday .org.

This program has been sponsored by The Word for Today.

In Costa Mesa, California.