The Christ Church Wednesday Bible Study Group is studying God's providence or divine providence in the lives of David and Joseph and how we can apply His providence in their lives to our lives today.
The providence of God or divine providence is the governance of God by which He, with wisdom and love, cares for and directs all things in the universe. Divine providence asserts that God is in complete control of all things. He is sovereign over the universe. He is in control of the physical world. He is in control of the affairs of nations. He is in control of human destiny. He is in control of human successes and failures. He protects His people.
Last week we looked at 2 Samuel Chapter 22 which is a psalm or song written by David apparently in the later years of his life. 2 Samuel Chapter 22 has four themes of David’s life and I dare say our lives too.
When times are tough, God is our only security (2-20)
When our days are dark, the Lord is our only light (21-31)
When our walk is week, the Lord is our only strength (32-40)
When our future is foggy or fuzzy, the Lord is our only hope (50-51)
For our study we will be using Great Lives: David: A Man of Passion and Destiny, by Charles R. Swindoll, and The Hand of God by Alistair Begg. To study along with us you can purchase the books by clicking the Links here or the images after the notes.
The providence of God or divine providence is the governance of God by which He, with wisdom and love, cares for and directs all things in the universe. Divine providence asserts that God is in complete control of all things. He is sovereign over the universe as a whole, He is in control of the physical world, He is in control of the affairs of nations, He’s in control of human destiny, He’s in control of human successes and failures, He protects His people. Through divine providence God accomplishes His will.
Last week we looked at 2 Samuel Chapter 22 which is a psalm or song written by David in the later years of his life. He’s gone through extreme highs and extreme lows in his life. He starts out as the youngest boy in a family and he’s the one that has to be out with the sheep a low point. Samuel anoints him king, high point. He kills Israel’s enemy’s champion high point; He is brought into the palace to calm the king with his music high point. He is a military hero and leader, high point. The king become paranoid and afraid of David’s popularity and trys to kill him, low point. Saul dies in battle and David becomes king and unifies the nation and the nation prospers, high point. David has an adulterous affair, and his child dies, low point. His son rebels against him low point. His reign is reinstated high point. The Philistines come back, and the nation is at war again low point. We are going to be talking about another low or dark point today.
But first let’s finish our look at 2 Samuel Chapter 22 for four themes of David’s life and I dare say our lives too. The four themes were
When times are tough, God is our only security (2-20)
When our days are dark, the Lord is our only light (21-31)
When our walk is week, the Lord is our only strength (32-40)
When our future is foggy or fuzzy, the Lord is our only hope (50-51)
Last week we looked at the first three.
Just a quick review.
When times are tough, God is our only security (2-20)
2 Samuel 22:2-3, 7 NIV He said: “The Lord is my rock, my fortress and my deliverer; my God is my rock, in whom I take refuge, my shield and the horn of my salvation. He is my stronghold, my refuge and my savior— from violent people you save me. “In my distress I called to the Lord; I called out to my God. From his temple he heard my voice; my cry came to his ears.
There was a famine going on because of something that happened during Saul’s reign and the nation of Israel was again at war with the Philistines. David cried out the the Lord for relief.
God sent rain reflected in 2 Samuel 22:7-12, and he provided the ability supernaturally, to defeat the enemy, because David said the enemy was too strong for them. That was in 2 Samuel 22:14-19.
In tough times sometimes it is difficult to believe that the Lord delights in us. Yet He does.
Zephaniah 3:17 NIV The Lord your God is with you, the Mighty Warrior who saves. He will take great delight in you; in his love he will no longer rebuke you, but will rejoice over you with singing.”
When our days are dark, the Lord is our only light (21-31)
2 Samuel 22:29-30 NIV You, Lord, are my lamp; the Lord turns my darkness into light. With your help I can advance against a troop; with my God I can scale a wall.
Let’s look at another song of David in which he says that God is light or a lamp which leads and protects.
Psalms 27:1-3 NIV The Lord is my light and my salvation— whom shall I fear? The Lord is the stronghold of my life— of whom shall I be afraid? When the wicked advance against me to devour me, it is my enemies and my foes who will stumble and fall. Though an army besiege me, my heart will not fear; though war break out against me, even then I will be confident.
However, in His goodness He only shows us what’s right in front of us. We want to see all the way to the end of the road, but God only lets us see what’s important today. He will guide us every step, but we may want to get out ahead of God and that means waking into the dark which in most cases is not a good idea. The road ahead may be tough, but God said,
Deuteronomy 31:6, 8 NIV Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid or terrified because of them, for the Lord your God goes with you; he will never leave you nor forsake you.” The Lord himself goes before you and will be with you; he will never leave you nor forsake you. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged.”
When our walk is week, the Lord is our only strength (32-40)
Remember David at this time is much older and he’s dealing with a famine and a war and given all he’s gone through in his life he is tired he’s exhausted, but God in his grace gives him the strength to go on.
2 Samuel 22:32-37 CEV You alone are God! Only you are a mighty rock. You are my strong fortress, and you set me free. You make my feet run as fast as those of a deer, and you help me stand on the mountains. You teach my hands to fight and my arms to use a bow of bronze. You alone are my shield, and by coming to help me, you have made me famous. You clear the way for me, and now I won't stumble.
Paul said the same thing
2 Corinthians 12:6-10 NIV Even if I should choose to boast, I would not be a fool, because I would be speaking the truth. But I refrain, so no one will think more of me than is warranted by what I do or say, or because of these surpassingly great revelations. Therefore, in order to keep me from becoming conceited, I was given a thorn in my flesh, a messenger of Satan, to torment me. Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me. But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.
When times are tough, the Lord is our only security. When days are dark, the Lord is our only light. When our walk is weak, the Lord is our only strength.
Now let’s look at the fourth theme of this psalm
When our future is foggy or fuzzy, the Lord is our only hope (50-51)
2 Samuel 22:47-51 NIV “The Lord lives! Praise be to my Rock! Exalted be my God, the Rock, my Savior! He is the God who avenges me, who puts the nations under me, who sets me free from my enemies. You exalted me above my foes; from a violent man you rescued me. Therefore I will praise you, Lord, among the nations; I will sing the praises of your name. “He gives his king great victories; he shows unfailing kindness to his anointed, to David and his descendants forever.”
Despite all that David has been through, he is not bitter or resentful. David approached the end of his life with praise and a look to the future as he ends this song
We Christians, I have observed, frequently have trouble believing that He is our only hope, security, light, and strength because we are so prone to try everything else before the cry out to God. We automatically depend upon everything except the Lord.
Yet as we read earlier, He is always there He never leaves or forsakes us.
He is waiting to show Himself strong. He is our light and our salvation. He hears our cry. He lifts us up out of a horrible pit; He places our feet upon a rock and directs or steps. He proves Himself strong in our weakness; He sheds light in our darkness; He becomes hope in our uncertainty and security in our confusion. We should always thank him for being there throughout our lives. . . never letting us down. . . never making us feel foolish because we are weak.
Psalms 73:23-28 NIV Yet I am always with you; you hold me by my right hand. You guide me with your counsel, and afterward you will take me into glory. Whom have I in heaven but you? And earth has nothing I desire besides you. My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever. Those who are far from you will perish; you destroy all who are unfaithful to you. But as for me, it is good to be near God. I have made the Sovereign Lord my refuge; I will tell of all your deeds.
Psalms 25:1-22 NIV In you, Lord my God, I put my trust. I trust in you; do not let me be put to shame, nor let my enemies triumph over me. No one who hopes in you will ever be put to shame, but shame will come on those who are treacherous without cause. Show me your ways, Lord, teach me your paths. Guide me in your truth and teach me, for you are God my Savior, and my hope is in you all day long. Remember, Lord, your great mercy and love, for they are from of old. Do not remember the sins of my youth and my rebellious ways; according to your love remember me, for you, Lord, are good. Good and upright is the Lord; therefore he instructs sinners in his ways. He guides the humble in what is right and teaches them his way. All the ways of the Lord are loving and faithful toward those who keep the demands of his covenant. For the sake of your name, Lord, forgive my iniquity, though it is great. Who, then, are those who fear the Lord? He will instruct them in the ways they should choose. They will spend their days in prosperity, and their descendants will inherit the land. The Lord confides in those who fear him; he makes his covenant known to them. My eyes are ever on the Lord, for only he will release my feet from the snare. Turn to me and be gracious to me, for I am lonely and afflicted. Relieve the troubles of my heart and free me from my anguish. Look on my affliction and my distress and take away all my sins. See how numerous are my enemies and how fiercely they hate me! Guard my life and rescue me; do not let me be put to shame, for I take refuge in you. May integrity and uprightness protect me, because my hope, Lord, is in you. Deliver Israel, O God, from all their troubles!
David's Foolish Decision
As I mentioned earlier there is one more low or dark point of David’s life. An action of his perhaps born out of pride affected not only him but had a disastrous impact on the entire nation in fact 70,000 men died as a result of this one sinful act.
What happened is a lesson that all leaders should learn, especially those who are not accountable to others.
When a spiritual leader wanders from the things of God, the consequences are often devastating and always far-reaching. When men and women who claim to model the message of Christ defect from that message, either by their actions or the statements that fall from their lips, they leave a destructive wake in the body of Christ.
We are going to concentrate our study in 2 Samuel Chapter 24 and a parallel passage in 1 Chronicles. Both passages are talking about a foolish decision David made that had disastrous results for the nation of Israel.
The decision came after an apparent victory over the Philistines the last battle of David before his death. We talked about this before when you win a battle you feel good about yourself and you become vulnerable.
David is coming off a spiritual and emotional high. Remember, he could have slain Saul twice, but he didn’t. Then he was about to kill Nabal, but Abigail talked him out of that, thankfully. So, he’s walked in victory for quite some time. He’s come off the crest of victory, and, as all of us know, that’s a very vulnerable spot.
Now when we look at the beginning of 2 Samuel 24 we see that both God and David are upset we don’t know why we just know they are upset.
2 Samuel 24:1-2 NIV Again the anger of the Lord burned against Israel, and he incited David against them, saying, “Go and take a census of Israel and Judah.” So the king said to Joab and the army commanders with him, “Go throughout the tribes of Israel from Dan to Beersheba and enroll the fighting men, so that I may know how many there are.”
Bible scholars suggest that his motive was to learn the strength of his army. In other words, his unstated motive was pride. He wanted to see how big his land really was, how vast his kingdom, how impressive his army.
At this point he received some wise counsel from the leader of his army Joab —which he ignored, unfortunately.
Remember Joab is the friend that brings David back to reality after the victory over Absolam’s forces even though David was rightly sorrowful over Absolom's murder.
2 Samuel 24:3 NIV But Joab replied to the king, “May the Lord your God multiply the troops a hundred times over, and may the eyes of my Lord the king see it. But why does my Lord the king want to do such a thing?”
2 Samuel 24:4 NIV The king’s word, however, overruled Joab and the army commanders; so they left the presence of the king to enroll the fighting men of Israel.
In other words, I am the king so do what I tell you.
Because David was vulnerable after a victory and because he was the king Satan was able to get into his mind and influence him to give this order.
1 Chronicles 21:1-4 NIV Satan rose up against Israel and incited David to take a census of Israel. So David said to Joab and the commanders of the troops, “Go and count the Israelites from Beersheba to Dan. Then report back to me so that I may know how many there are.” But Joab replied, “May the Lord multiply his troops a hundred times over. My Lord the king, are they not all my Lord’s subjects? Why does my Lord want to do this? Why should he bring guilt on Israel?” The king’s word, however, overruled Joab; so Joab left and went throughout Israel and then came back to Jerusalem.
Satan can get to us too through our minds. In fact, that is where spiritual warfare takes place in the mind. Satan tries to get the believer to not trust God when things go bad or to discount God’s grace when things go well. He does all this in the mind. So, we must guard our minds and constantly flood it with the word of God since we know that’s where Satan attacks in the mind.
David’s decision to number the people and to ignore the advice of a trusted person points out some weakness in David that we have also.
The first weakness is that David did not seek God before making this decision he instead listened to Satan, and just did it. The second weakness is that David was unaccountable to anyone around him—a dangerous oversight.
Once he set things in motion though he had second thoughts perhaps he now realized that he did not seek God before giving the order.
2 Samuel 24:10 NIV David was conscience-stricken after he had counted the fighting men, and he said to the Lord, “I have sinned greatly in what I have done. Now, Lord, I beg you, take away the guilt of your servant. I have done a very foolish thing.”
David realized that he was foolish in sinning against God. The sin was pride. Just like when confronted by Natan when he realized he had sinned he acknowledged it confessed and asked forgiveness.
Perhaps the realization of his foolishness and sin was consequence of his actions which displeased God. We get another look by going to 1 Chronicles 21:7-8.
1 Chronicles 21:7-8 NIV This command was also evil in the sight of God; so he punished Israel. Then David said to God, “I have sinned greatly by doing this. Now, I beg you, take away the guilt of your servant. I have done a very foolish thing.”
Remember sin has real consequences. In this case God gives David three choices of consequences. That is not usually the case with you but here God gives David three choices none of which are good or the nation which has to suffer because the leader sinned.
1 Chronicles 21:9-13 NIV The Lord said to Gad, David’s seer, “Go and tell David, ‘This is what the Lord says: I am giving you three options. Choose one of them for me to carry out against you.’ ” So Gad went to David and said to him, “This is what the Lord says: ‘Take your choice: three years of famine, three months of being swept away before your enemies, with their swords overtaking you, or three days of the sword of the Lord—days of plague in the land, with the angel of the Lord ravaging every part of Israel.’ Now then, decide how I should answer the one who sent me.” David said to Gad, “I am in deep distress. Let me fall into the hands of the Lord, for his mercy is very great; but do not let me fall into human hands.”
David’s choice and the one we should always choose is to call on and God’s mercy and grace not the judgement of man.
Jeremiah 17:5 NIV This is what the Lord says: “Cursed is the one who trusts in man, who draws strength from mere flesh and whose heart turns away from the Lord.
David’s sinful act still caused the death of 70,000 men.
2 Samuel 24:15-17 NIV So the Lord sent a plague on Israel from that morning until the end of the time designated, and seventy thousand of the people from Dan to Beersheba died. When the angel stretched out his hand to destroy Jerusalem, the Lord relented concerning the disaster and said to the angel who was afflicting the people, “Enough! Withdraw your hand.” The angel of the Lord was then at the threshing floor of Araunah the Jebusite. When David saw the angel who was striking down the people, he said to the Lord, “I have sinned; I, the shepherd, have done wrong. These are but sheep. What have they done? Let your hand fall on me and my family.”
David realized that all of this was the result of what he did as a leader.
1 Chronicles 21:15-17 NIV And God sent an angel to destroy Jerusalem. But as the angel was doing so, the Lord saw it and relented concerning the disaster and said to the angel who was destroying the people, “Enough! Withdraw your hand.” The angel of the Lord was then standing at the threshing floor of Araunah the Jebusite. David looked up and saw the angel of the Lord standing between heaven and earth, with a drawn sword in his hand extended over Jerusalem. Then David and the elders, clothed in sackcloth, fell facedown. David said to God, “Was it not I who ordered the fighting men to be counted? I, the shepherd, have sinned and done wrong. These are but sheep. What have they done? Lord my God, let your hand fall on me and my family, but do not let this plague remain on your people.”
God had David construct a reminder of his sin and the consequences. The interesting thing that we need to remember is that sin cost something and for David it was the cost of an alter for us it was the cost of our Savior’s life.
2 Samuel 24:18-25 NIV On that day Gad went to David and said to him, “Go up and build an altar to the Lord on the threshing floor of Araunah the Jebusite.” So David went up, as the Lord had commanded through Gad. When Araunah looked and saw the king and his officials coming toward him, he went out and bowed down before the king with his face to the ground. Araunah said, “Why has my Lord the king come to his servant?” “To buy your threshing floor,” David answered, “so I can build an altar to the Lord, that the plague on the people may be stopped.” Araunah said to David, “Let my Lord the king take whatever he wishes and offer it up. Here are oxen for the burnt offering, and here are threshing sledges and ox yokes for the wood. Your Majesty, Araunah gives all this to the king.” Araunah also said to him, “May the Lord your God accept you.” But the king replied to Araunah, “No, I insist on paying you for it. I will not sacrifice to the Lord my God burnt offerings that cost me nothing.” So David bought the threshing floor and the oxen and paid fifty shekels of silver for them. David built an altar to the Lord there and sacrificed burnt offerings and fellowship offerings. Then the Lord answered his prayer in behalf of the land, and the plague on Israel was stopped.
David’s experience offers us three warnings.
1. To live an unaccountable life is to flirt with danger. Accountability is one of the things God uses to keep His people pure. We all need to be held accountable by someone. Had David listened to Joab he would never have numbered the people. . . or been the cause of such devastation. To ignore accountability is to flirt with danger.
2. To ignore sin’s consequences is to reject God’s truth. The Bible is filled with the reality of the consequences of sin. Sin is really a selfish act. It’s all about bringing ourselves pleasure, caring little about the toll it will take on someone else.
3. To fail to take God seriously is to deny His lordship. Amid the fun and the delight of living—and no one believes in that more than I do—it is tempting to go too far and take the edge off His holiness. No need to take ourselves all that seriously. . . but when it comes to God, we need to take Him very seriously, not play games with Him. And when we do take Him seriously, He gives us the delight and satisfaction of a full life.
If a man as great and godly as David could foul up his life so near the end of his days, so can anyone else. That includes you. That includes me.
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