1 Chron. 21:1-301And Satan stood up against Israel, and provoked David to number Israel. 2And David said to Joab and to the rulers of the people, Go, number Israel from Beer-sheba even to Dan; and bring the number of them to me, that I may know it. 3And Joab answered, The Lord make his people an hundred times so many more as they be: but, my lord the king, are they not all my lord's servants? why then doth my lord require this thing? why will he be a cause of trespass to Israel? 4Nevertheless the king's word prevailed against Joab. Wherefore Joab departed, and went throughout all Israel, and came to Jerusalem. 5And Joab gave the sum of the number of the people unto David. And all they of Israel were a thousand thousand and an hundred thousand men that drew sword: and Judah was four hundred threescore and ten thousand men that drew sword. 6But Levi and Benjamin counted he not among them: for the king's word was abominable to Joab. 7And God was displeased with this thing; therefore he smote Israel. 8And David said unto God, I have sinned greatly, because I have done this thing: but now, I beseech thee, do away the iniquity of thy servant; for I have done very foolishly. 9And the Lord spake unto Gad, David's seer, saying, 10Go 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. 11So Gad came to David, and said unto him, Thus saith the Lord, Choose thee 12Either 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. 13And 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. 14So the Lord sent pestilence upon Israel: and there fell of Israel seventy thousand men. 15And 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. 16And 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. 17And 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. 18Then the angel of the Lord commanded Gad to say to David, that David should go up, and set up an altar unto the Lord in the threshingfloor of Ornan the Jebusite. 19And David went up at the saying of Gad, which he spake in the name of the Lord. 20And Ornan turned back, and saw the angel; and his four sons with him hid themselves. Now Ornan was threshing wheat. 21And as David came to Ornan, Ornan looked and saw David, and went out of the threshingfloor, and bowed himself to David with his face to the ground. 22Then David said to Ornan, Grant me the place of this threshingfloor, that I may build an altar therein unto the Lord: thou shalt grant it me for the full price: that the plague may be stayed from the people. 23And Ornan said unto David, Take it to thee, and let my lord the king do that which is good in his eyes: lo, I give thee the oxen also for burnt offerings, and the threshing instruments for wood, and the wheat for the meat offering; I give it all. 24And king David said to Ornan, Nay; but I will verily buy it for the full price: for I will not take that which is thine for the Lord, nor offer burnt offerings without cost. 25So David gave to Ornan for the place six hundred shekels of gold by weight. 26And David built there an altar unto the Lord, and offered burnt offerings and peace offerings, and called upon the Lord; and he answered him from heaven by fire upon the altar of burnt offering. 27And the Lord commanded the angel; and he put up his sword again into the sheath thereof. 28At that time when David saw that the Lord had answered him in the threshingfloor of Ornan the Jebusite, then he sacrificed there. 29For the tabernacle of the Lord, which Moses made in the wilderness, and the altar of the burnt offering, were at that season in the high place at Gibeon. 30But David could not go before it to inquire of God: for he was afraid because of the sword of the angel of the Lord. (1 Chronicles 21:1‑30).
DAVID had to choose between three things: either three years’ famine, or for three months to fall before his enemies, or three days to have the sword of the Lord and the angel of the Lord destroying throughout all the coasts of Israel. David said: “Let me fall now into the hand of the Lord; for very great are His mercies: but let me not fall into the hands of man.” He knew God better than he knew man after all. It is a great thing to fall into the hands of God.
Then there came an angel with a drawn sword. The question has been raised by infidels, Where were the people in all this? But the people had departed as well as the king. Depend upon it, not only had the king departed from God, but the people had largely departed too. They never really gave up idolatry; they held to it secretly, even in the days of David and Solomon. It is natural to people to be idolaters; we are in the presence of it now, of Babylonish idolatry. Roman Catholicism is Babylonish idolatry pure and simple, worshipping the creature more than the Creator, a piece of bread or the most blessed among women. No doubt these people were suffering for their own sins as well as David’s sin.
There was the sword. Listen: “It is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment.” There it is, like a sword you cannot get away from. What Satan seeks to do is to divert you from that. Young woman, Satan has succeeded in diverting you from thinking of the judgment of God by something of far less consequence; you would rather have a feather in your hat, or some companionship here, than the Saviour. Judgment is hanging over your head. “It is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment.”
Here was a farmer threshing wheat. He lifted up his eyes, and when once he had done that, it was all over with the threshing. If you have never had your eyes open to see the sword of the Lord, I pray God you may see tonight. Suppose you were bound to your bed tonight, and right over it a glittering sword was hanging by just a single thread. Would it fascinate you? Would you sleep? No, no! When God opens the eyes of a sinner to see the judgment, it is all over with business and pleasure. Satan seeks to divert people from it, but the sword is there. Ornan and his four sons hid themselves.
David is a type in one way of the Lord Jesus Christ. Of course, there he is, and he stands for himself, a poor sinful man, but the Spirit of God took him up to pen some of the most beautiful psalms―psalms that speak of Jesus bearing the judgment of His people. Psalms 22. was written by David, where you get what Jesus felt on the cross far more than you do in the gospels. David was the man used of God to bring forth that side of things. In Psalms 22 it could not possibly be David speaking of himself, he is speaking of the sufferings of Christ and the glory that should follow.
In our chapter we have him as a type of the Lord Jesus Christ, though all types fail. What we find here is, he stands in the breach. In one of the prophets there is a verse that runs like this: “I sought for a man among them, that should make up the hedge, and stand in the gap before me for the land, that I should not destroy it; but I found none.” Someone must stand in the breach, and the blessed Lord Jesus Christ is the one to do it, David’s son, and David’s Lord because He is the Son of God. In our chapter here, David says to 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.”
Think of Jesus. He came down here and ever lived for the pleasure of God, traced His beautiful way under the eye of God, and established His title to live. There was no stain of sin there, infinitely holy and absolutely perfect; and yet when He came to the cross there was the sword of judgment, there was the judgment we deserved. “In the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.” “It is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment.” Jesus stood in the breach; God found a man to keep out the plague―it was His own blessed Son. On yonder cross He said: “Let Thine hand, I pray Thee, O Lord My God, be on Me.” It is said in the Psalms that He took His people’s sins and called them His own. He was perfectly sinless or He could not have done it Heavy was the hand of God on Jesus when He was on yonder cross. Come here and learn what sin is by the sorrows of Jesus; see the holiness of God by the terribly bitter cry that came from His lips: “My God, My God, why ‘last Thou forsaken Me?” Was there ever a cry like that, ever anguish like that? “My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me? Why art Thou so far from helping Me, and from the words of My roaring?” There is no answer. “O My God, I cry in the day-time, but Thou hearest not: and in the night-season, and there is no rest for me.” No answer. Oh, was there ever sorrow like that?
Can you measure the ineffable communion in which He dwelt here for thirty-three years, living in the sunshine and favor of God? He never relieved a man yet but He felt it in His spirit, “Himself took our infirmities and bare our sicknesses.” He could look up to heaven and sigh deeply; it was not an act of divine power simply, but He felt it all. On He went, “a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief”; He could say, “Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests; but the Son of Man hath not where to lay His head.” We see Him weeping over Jerusalem―poor Jerusalem! ―sleeping that sleep of guilty indifference. There, across that valley, behold the blessed Lord Jesus weeping in agony and praying more earnestly. How hard man’s heart is! There were the people sleeping on! They had witnessed all His mighty acts, seen all the goodness of God in that blessed Person, and He had wept over Jerusalem, saying, “If thou hadst known, even thou, at least in this thy day, the things which belong unto peace; but now they are hid from thine eyes.”
Now in the cold midnight hour He weeps before the Father’s face, “and His sweat was as it were great drops of blood falling down to the ground.” The cup was there, though He did not drink it there. Satan was crossing His path and saying, “If You go this way, You will feel my power.” He brushes Satan’s suggestion aside, and sees the Father’s power and the Father’s hand. The flaming sword was there―the sword of judgment. “If it be possible, let this cup pass from me.” It was not possible; there was no other way of sheathing the sword. He must go on to Calvary’s cross, and there on Calvary’s cross be numbered with the transgressors.
Oh, that blessed Lord Jesus! Did you ever trace Him? What holy ground is this! He was nailed to Calvary’s cross. We are told in history, when prisoners were nailed in this way, how they writhed and cursed their tormentors. This blessed One never cursed His tormentors. The soldiers must have been awe-stricken, and may well have whispered, “Who is this?” “He is brought as a lamb to the slaughter; and as a sheep before her shearers is dumb, so He openeth not His mouth.”
They nailed His hands to the cross, His blessed hands. Think of your hands, man! God knows what they have done. Think of what His hands had done: they had never been outstretched for Himself. Take His feet; they will never walk here again; they were nailed to the cross. Think of where your feet have carried you! Think of His hands, His feet There they are uplifted. Then His lips move: “Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do.” He is with the Father still. Is that Jesus? Yes, that is Jesus. “Father, forgive them.” Perhaps they were touched for a moment, but now in coldhearted selfishness they gamble over His clothes. “They parted My raiment among them, and for My vesture they did cast lots.” They were gambling over His garments in the presence of the sufferings of Jesus! Poor, wretched man!
The bulls of Bashan come round and begin to taunt Him: they have got the Scriptures on their phylacteries. “He trusted on Jehovah that He would deliver Him: let Him deliver Him, seeing He delighted in Him.” Oh, that blessed Saviour! He trusted God through all the agony of the cross, through the forsaking, through death; yes, He trusted Him all through.
“If He be the King of Israel, let Him now come down from the cross, and we will believe Him.” He will stay there. His disciples forsake Him, and then darkness comes, thick darkness. “Let Thine hand, I pray thee, O Lord my God, be upon me,” said David. The hand of God was upon Jesus in that bitter hour. Oh, David, if the hand of God comes upon you it will crush you; but it came on Jesus. Twice over in Psalms 22. He says, “Be not far from me.” Then He has to say at last, “Why hast Thou forsaken Me?” Oh, beloved friends, I know why; He took my place, He bore my judgment, bless His holy name! Do I love Him―love Jesus? Why, of course I do. He took my place. The judgment I deserved fell on Him, overwhelmed Him in that bitter hour. By that act He won my heart. I have found people to love me here, and who would do anything for me; but He has done for me as no one else could. We have to say to Him “O, Jesus Lord, who loved me like to Thee?”
He was the Altar and the Sacrifice. David comes to Ornan, he had hid himself. How can you go on threshing your wheat when the sword of judgment is over you? May God open your eyes to see it. When David drew near he came out of his hiding-place, and bowed at his feet. Bow down at the blessed feet of Jesus the Lord tonight, Who has been to the cross as the sacrifice, and Who has sheathed the sword forever. It all speaks of Christ.
David said to Ornan, “Grant me the place of this threshing-floor,” etc.; and Ornan said unto David, “Take it to thee.... I give it all.” “No,” says David, “I will pay the full price for it,” and he paid six hundred shekels of gold; on the threshing-floor he put the sacrifice. Christ is both the Sacrifice and the Altar. It was near the very spot where the ram was caught by its horns in the thicket. That marks the beauty of Scripture. “God will provide Himself a lamb.” On that very spot this altar was built and the sacrifice was there: God accepted the sacrifice. If God accepts the sacrifice the sword is sheathed forever. The accepted sacrifice and the sheathed sword is the story of this chapter.
How does that apply to me? I am going to tell you the best part of it now. You cannot get resurrection in the type. How do I know the sword is sheathed? How do I know the sacrifice is accepted? Because God has raised the One Who was the sacrifice and He is in the presence of God, a risen Christ. The sword is sheathed forever. It is in the presence of God Who raised Jesus our Lord from the dead, and in the presence of Jesus Who was raised, that you know the sword is sheathed forever. It is not at the foot of the cross that your burden rolls away, but at the feet of the Saviour Who was on the cross. The sword is sheathed forever, and it is peace, PEACE, PEACE!
That glorious resurrection morn
Bids doubts forever cease,
For far and wide the news is borne
Of perfect peace.
The sacrifice has been accepted because the Person Who was the sacrifice has been raised. Beloved friends, there is no other God but the God Who raised Him; and no other Christ to trust but the Christ Who has been raised. You need to get into the presence of God Who raised up Jesus our Lord from the dead. He has accepted the sacrifice; the sword is sheathed.
W. J.