Well after 70 blogs this is my last blog on the life of David (stop cheering and dancing around the room) as the book of 2 Samuel comes to an end.

God gives instructions that an altar should be built (vs 18). The place is very specific, it’s in a small farm owned by a man called Araunah. God is never vague. He doesn’t want us to guess what he is saying. Araunah is, as he is every day, up early and out in the fields working hard, when he sees the King coming towards him with an entourage. What must he have thought, this humble farmer visited by Israel’s greatest king? Yet this is a picture of salvation, your salvation, my salvation. You and I, undeserving and unnoticed, to be chosen by the King of the Cosmos. It’s like Zacchaeus where Jesus says I’m coming to your house for tea, what privileged people we are. Araunah after laying on the floor with his face to the ground asks the King why he has come.

And Araunah said, “Why has my lord the king come to his servant?” David said, “To buy the threshing floor from you, in order to build an altar to the LORD, that the plague may be averted from the people.” 2 Samuel 24:21

So Araunah offers the King the land and everything else David needed. Keep in mind yours and my salvation. The king has visited us and bearing in mind what all of this means, our response to this should be that we give back our all to him. Have we done that?

“Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant in search of fine pearls, who, on finding one pearl of great value, went and sold all that he had and bought it.  Matthew 13:45-46

David is kind and will not abuse his power and authority so he pays Araunah for the threshing floor and for the oxen. He is generous and over-pays. He builds the altar, makes the sacrifice and the plague (read death) was averted from Israel. As I have previously said, this whole incident speaks of something much more, of something that is to come, so let’s look at that.

The reason for the sacrifice made by David was that there was sin and the judgement of God cannot be held back without a sacrifice. In this case David had done wrong. In the Chronicles account it tells us that Satan stood up against Israel, and moved David to number Israel (see 2 Samuel 24:1-17) David’s response is,

But David’s heart struck him after he had numbered the people. And David said to the LORD, “I have sinned greatly in what I have done. But now, O LORD, please take away the iniquity of your servant, for I have done very foolishly.” 2 Samuel 24:10

In verses 11-13 we see that God offers David three choices. Seven years of famine, to flee for three months from before his enemies or three days plague in his land. David chose the plague and in verses 15-17 the extent of the plague is explained.

Then David spoke to the LORD when he saw the angel who was striking the people, and said, “Behold, I have sinned, and I have done wickedly. But these sheep, what have they done? Please let your hand be against me and against my father’s house. 2 Samuel 24:17

God cannot just ignore sin, he can’t say “just forget it” He is a holy God and must punish sin. The plague of death will not stop unless a sacrifice for sin has been made.

The type of sacrifice is by the shedding of blood as a means of payment for the sin caused. The sacrifice has to be innocent. Without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness.

Indeed, under the law almost everything is purified with blood, and without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sins. Hebrews 9:22

The sacrifice has to be costly. In this case it was a threshing floor and oxen. Araunah wanted David to have them for free, but David in some way knew that a sacrifice for sin should be costly. He is right, but in our case the cost was not imposed upon us, it was placed upon Jesus. It is, I believe, beyond our ability to comprehend what the cost of atoning for our sins totally was, I guess one day we fully understand. We cannot fully comprehend; the pain, the indignity, the ridicule, the abandonment, the injustice, the unfairness and worst of all, leaving the perfection of heaven, choosing to live in our frame and carrying the weight of our sin on the cross.

He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. By his wounds you have been healed. 1 Peter 2:24

I love God’s unfolding plan. This humble man’s threshing floor that became the site of David’s sacrifice for sin would, one day, become the site of the temple.

Then Solomon began to build the house of the LORD in Jerusalem on Mount Moriah, where the LORD had appeared to David his father, at the place that David had appointed, on the threshing floor of Ornan  (Araunah) the Jebusite. 2 Chronicles 3:1

A thousand years later, in this very area Jesus would be examined in the high priests house, he would be disowned by his friend Peter, he would be accused of plotting to destroy the temple and he would be delivered up for our sins.

but for ours also. It will be counted to us who believe in him who raised from the dead Jesus our Lord, who was delivered up for our trespasses and raised for our justification. Romans 4:24-25

Peter mentions God delivering Jesus over to be crucified in his sermon on the Day of Pentecost in Acts 2. This Jesus, delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God, you crucified and killed by the hands of lawless men. But the point is this, our salvation, which includes at its centre Jesus’ death on the cross, was not an unfortunate moment in history when evil men gained the upper hand. Although they were fully responsible for their sin, the crucifixion was in fact God’s prede­termined plan to give His eternal Son to pay the penalty for our sin. A Christian believes that salvation is from the Lord so that it all is “to the praise of the glory of His grace”

The result of the sacrifice was reconciliation. When David made the sacrifice the plague of death stopped. The sacrifice was accepted and God turned his anger away. These sacrifices we find in the Old Testament are puny and feeble pictures in comparison to the perfect sacrifice of Jesus on the cross, but to us this final sacrifice for sin was made on our behalf and we, by faith, receive full and lavish reconciliation.

Once we were God’s enemies says Romans 5. Not that we consciously hated God (although some did) but our clueless resistance and attitude of self-dependence did not stop God. He moved toward us with love and the provision of a perfect sacrifice through Christ. He poured out his righteous wrath against our sin upon His only son. His son who became our atoning sacrifice and through his death he became our substitute. No wonder then that we “rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation” Romans 5:11

We didn’t earn or deserve our reconciliation, and we didn’t meet God in the middle. We contributed nothing except indifference. God was the one who accomplished our reconciliation for us at the cross, and God was the one who offered our reconciliation to us in the gospel. All we ever did was to receive it by faith.

The end of 70 blogs……….