1 Chronicles 21:9 says, And the Lord spake unto Gad, David's seer, saying, Gad was referred to as David's seer, and God spoke to him. Gad was not said to have gotten a vision by his own psychic abilities, but was said in the next verse to have gotten a message from God. God did at times allow certain people in the Old Testament to see into the future, but today we are only given signs of the coming of the return of Jesus Christ, and I don't believe we are given any new revelations about God. Verse ten adds, Go and tell David, saying, Thus saith the Lord, I offer thee three things: choose thee one of them, that I may do it unto thee. Gad was told to go tell David that He was giving him three choices as punishment for his arrogance in numbering the people for his own glory. We only have one choice. We can either accept Jesus Christ as our personal Savior and Lord or reject Him and go away into everlasting punishment. Verse eleven continues, So Gad came to David, and said unto him, Thus saith the Lord, Choose thee Gad delivered God's message to David, and we can only deliver the gospel to people today, and there is no other choice for redemption from sin. Verse twelve states, Either three years' famine; or three months to be destroyed before thy foes, while that the sword of thine enemies overtaketh thee; or else three days the sword of the Lord, even the pestilence, in the land, and the angel of the Lord destroying throughout all the coasts of Israel. Now therefore advise thyself what word I shall bring again to him that sent me. None of the choices were good, and all involved the whole nation, which may not seem fair, and they would last for different periods of time depending on their severity. Again, we only have the one choice, and it lasts forever whichever one we make. Verse thirteen adds. And David said unto Gad, I am in a great strait: let me fall now into the hand of the Lord; for very great are his mercies: but let me not fall into the hand of man. David asked he fall into the hand of God and not into the hand of man, because God was merciful, but men aren't always. That eliminated the choice of three years of famine or three months while David's enemies destroyed him. David chose to leave it in God's hands, maybe hoping He would just forgive him and not really punish him. Still, sin can never be overlooked by God, and a penalty must be paid, but as followers of Jesus Christ, He paid that penalty for us, and He is the only One Who can pay it. Verse fourteen continues, So the Lord sent pestilence upon Israel: and there fell of Israel seventy thousand men. David had been proudly numbering the people of Israel, and because of his prideful action, there were now seventy-thousand fewer people to be numbered. We might say that these seventy thousand men did nothing to deserve death, and that might be true, but we are talking about physical and not spiritual death. Those who had put their faith in God simply went on to their heavenly reward sooner, and those who didn't had made their choice to not do so. Verse fifteen says, And God sent an angel unto Jerusalem to destroy it: and as he was destroying, the Lord beheld, and he repented him of the evil, and said to the angel that destroyed, It is enough, stay now thine hand. And the angel of the Lord stood by the threshingfloor of Ornan the Jebusite. God then sent an angel to destroy Jerusalem. He didn't send a legion of angels, but an angel. As the angel was doing so, God decided that the people had been punished enough and stopped the angel from any further destruction. Still, the angel stood by the threshing floor. Matthew Henry says that when David repented of his sin that God repented of His punishment, but to repent implies that someone has done something wrong, and God certainly hadn't. I believe that He simply decided that he would show mercy to Jerusalem, even if the people might have deserved punishment. We all deserve punishment for our sins, and it is only by God's mercy that we escape it. Verse sixteen adds, And David lifted up his eyes, and saw the angel of the Lord stand between the earth and the heaven, having a drawn sword in his hand stretched out over Jerusalem. Then David and the elders of Israel, who were clothed in sackcloth, fell upon their faces. David saw the angel with sword drawn standing between heaven and earth over Jerusalem. That must have been quite a terrifying sight, but it pales in comparison to what hell will be like. David and the elders fell on their faces before God, even though we are not told that the elders saw the angel. Whether we ever see an angel about to destroy the world around us or not, if we are guilty of sin, we need to fall on our faces before God and ask for forgiveness. Just because we are forever forgiven by putting our faith in Jesus Christ, we are not free to sin with no remorse nor repentance. Verse seventeen continues, And David said unto God, Is it not I that commanded the people to be numbered? even I it is that have sinned and done evil indeed; but as for these sheep, what have they done? let thine hand, I pray thee, O Lord my God, be on me, and on my father's house; but not on thy people, that they should be plagued. David then asked that since he was the one who had sinned by numbering the people of Israel that God punish his family and him and not the rest of the people. One thing we can be sure of is that each individual will be punished only for their own sins, and the only way to avoid that punishment is by accepting Jesus Christ as oor personal Savior and Lord.
No comments:
Post a Comment