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First Chronicles, chapter 20. I want to start in verse four and where we left off or where Pastor Gary left off in chapter 20. Chapter 20 is a very short chapter. It's only eight verses. But in chapter 20, I'm just going to put on the screen. The last lesson that we looked at was beware of ease. Pastor Gary talked about it's our downtime when Satan works overtime. And again in that story, it also parallels with second Samuel, chapter 11. And we all know that chapter of David's sin with Bathsheba. And it talks about, you know, David stayed back when he should have been going to war. And so Joab is the one that defeated Rabba and overthrew it. And there was a crown that was given to David. And so Pastor Gary looked at all of that and it says at the end of verse three, three, again, so David did to all the cities of the people of Ammon. Then David and all the people returned to Jerusalem. So again, it was the last point. Beware of just getting comfortable, getting at ease, because when it's our downtime, Satan can work overtime. And it's exactly what he did through David's life. And we're going to actually read about Satan again in chapter 21. So Satan's always working, and we have to be be diligent in that. But let's pick it up in verse 4. My subtitle says the Philistine giants destroyed. And so we're going to pick it up. This is an interesting section. It's only again, just several verses, but the. The author of First Chronicles is going to highlight certain giants that David's mighty men defeat not David, but his mighty men. And we're going to look at that. So let's pick it up in verse four. It says now it happened afterward that war broke out at Gazer with the Philistines. That's in Philistine territory. At which. At which time Sibichai or Sibichai, something like Chai Latte, I don't know, Sibichai or Kai the hush, the tight killed Sipai. Sipichai. Okay. There you can remember that who was one of the sons of the giant. And they were subdued. Again, verse 5. There was war with the Philistines. And Elhanan the son of Jer killed Lami, the brother of Goliath, the Gite, the shaft of whose spear was like a weaver's beam. And yet again there was war at Gath, where there was a man of great stature with 24 fingers. Yeah, and toes. It's okay. It's crazy. I'm going to talk about this Satan. Six on each hand and six on each foot. And he was also born to the giant. So when he defied Israel, Jonathan, not the same Jonathan that was friends with David. This is Jonathan, the son of Shimei, David's brother, killed him. Verse 8. These were born to the giant in Gath, and they fell by the hand of David and by the hand of his servants. So what's interesting in here, and you can also highlight or parallel right down second Samuel 21 parallels with, with this passage that we're in. Okay. Whenever you read Chronicles, 1st and 2nd Chronicles, it's always going to parallel, most likely with 1st and 2nd Samuel. So this is 2nd Samuel chapter 21, verses 15 to 22. That's the parallel. And when you look at both, you can compare both passages. They don't contradict each other, they complement each other. But you get more insight. You get insight from 2nd Samuel, you get some insight from 1st Chronicles that's not mentioned in 2nd Samuel. So what we have here are some giants that are named. One of them is unnamed, but we also have one that appears in 2nd Samuel chapter 21 that's not mentioned here in 1st Chronicles. And again, the most famous of the giants was Goliath, the one that David killed and defeated. David being a shepherd boy, probably a teenager, most likely kills this giant whom Saul and army couldn't do it and David did it. Fast forward. Now, David's king and he's a warrior and he's got mighty men. He's got a lot of, of people under him who are a part of his army. And there are more giants in the land. Okay? Now I don't want us to think about giants as being some fantasy or mythological thing that we read about in Greek and Roman history. The giant topic, okay, it's a big topic, no pun intended, but it's, it, it is something that gets a lot of little, honestly little attention, but it's something that honestly, the Bible talks about extensively, mostly in the Old Testament. And not only David kills a giant, which is Goliath, we actually read about two more famous characters of the Bible that also defeat giants. So we're going to look at that. The first one I want to mention is not mentioned here in chapter 20 of 1st Chronicles. He's mentioned actually in 2nd Samuel 21, but it's not on the screen. If you want to write this down, you can go back to second Samuel 21:15. But the first giant that actually was killed by David's mighty men his name was Ishb Benob. He was a descendant of the Rephaim. Now, the first time you hear the word Rephaim, it's the descendants of Rapha. Okay? Rephaim first appears in Genesis 14. Genesis 14. Look at verse 5, you will find that term, Rephaim. Now, what is Rephaim? Rephaim, in simple terms that I can tell you because I love studying, you know, when it comes to the Nephilim, the giants, you know, everything with Revelation, again, it's all full circle. I love studying this. The Raphaim was basically an old race or clan of giants post flood. Okay, The Nephilim were pre flood. Now, the Nephilim do come back post flood when you read numbers and there's speculation on how did the giants come back? Because I do believe that the Bible is clear that every living being and creature died from the flood except Noah and his seven Ra relatives. However, the Rephaim are this giant clan that stem from the Nephilim. Somehow they're all intertwined. It's this giant family tree, really. And the Rephaim are this old race of giants. And the refine appear after the flood. So you've got pre flood giants and you've got post flood giants. And when you read about the Nephilim in Genesis chapter six, it's very quick. When Moses is right in Genesis, he's already pretty much assuming you all know about this. But for our Western mindsets, we got to like, dig deep. What. What in the world are the Nephilim or the sons of God? Okay, and this giant race, I believe was the ones that brought corruption and chaos and violence. There's a whole Bible study of why God really sent the flood. Okay, I've dug deep into that. But then post flood, the giants don't go away. They somehow come back. And I believe they, the giants are literally the offspring of angels mingling with humans. Okay, now I know this gets so controversial. And again, I don't need any of these emails and I can talk about on the Q and A on March 11. But the sons of God are a type of angel. They're an angelic being that Genesis chapter six talks about because Job chapter one complements that. These are angels that came down and mingled and had sexual relations with the human women and thus gave birth to this giant race called the Nephilim, who were evil and anti God and very Satanic. All the occult worship, I believe, comes from that. I believe even Nimrod himself, who built Babylon and the Tower of Babel, may have Himself been a Nephilim. It's. And it's all. It's honestly all coming back. I think. I think in a way, the motive in which Satan is bringing it back is very different. But this is very interesting when you read about the giants in the land. And so Genesis 14:5, Abraham actually fights the Rephaim. No one talks about this. Abraham in Genesis 14:5, when he went to rescue Lot, his nephew Lot was captured. And it's that famous story about all these kings. And when you read through it quickly, we're like, I don't care about these names. I don't care about these clans. Let's just move on. But when you dig down deep, these are very important. And not only are the refine mentioned, but other giant clans are mentioned in that. And Abraham fights them. So cool. That's awesome. Another thing about the refine is Deuteronomy 3:11. Another famous character fights the king of the Raphael in that time was Moses. Moses. I'm sorry, the king of the refine was Og. And Moses fights King Og and defeats him. You got Abraham and Moses fighting giants. And nobody talks about that. It's amazing. When we go to Israel, there's a part of Israel in Caesarea Philippi, just above Caesarea Philippi. I would love to go this spot. We haven't gone to there before, but they recently just discovered this. This circle engraving almost like a Stonehenge up near Caesarea Philippi and near Mount Hermon. It's called Gilgal Refine. And I believe that Stonehenge, Gilgal Refaim, there's other big, massive, monumental structures that have been built. It's all connected. The giants, the pyramids. I mean, I could go on and on. It's just, it's. I think it's all connected and it's. It's all evil and satanic. But Moses and Abraham fight these specific Refaim giants. So when you read giants in 1st Chronicles, chapter 20, verse 4, when it says Sibakai the hush, I killed Sippy, who was one of the sons of the giant. The Hebrew is Rephaim. Okay, so these are descendants of the rephaim. Again, in 2nd Samuel, chapter 21, this ishbi benob who was defeated, his spearhead, it talks about weighed seven plus pounds, just the spearhead itself. And he was killed by Abishai, who actually saved David. This giant was about to kill David. David again is in his. Probably in his 60s or even 70s, still fighting. And Abishai, his nephew, kills this giant, Ishbi Benob. Now when we pick it up in First Chronicles, we're introduced to three more giants. So highlight in your Bibles if you want to. You can see the other giants names in verse two or verse, sorry, verse four. Sip. I was the giant. In verse five, Lami, another giant who's a brother of Goliath. Goliath had a brother, may have had other brothers. They're just not named. And then verse six, it's an unnamed giant. It just says, a man of great stature sit by. In verse two, he was a descendant of the Rephaim and he's killed by Sebekai. Sebekai was one of David's guards and the commander of 24,000 troops. So you don't mess around with this guy. And this guy kills this giant, all right? Lami, the brother of Goliath, specifically mentions as the brother of the Goliath that David killed Lami. It says that his handle, or the spear that he held, was as thick as a weaver's beam. And I had to look that up, was like, wow, how thick is a weaver's beam? A weaver's beam is two and a half inches thick. Now, that's just the spear. That's just the shaft of the spear, two and a half inches thick. But the spearhead, again, Goliath's spearhead, it tells us, weighed 15 pounds. Just the spearhead, 15 pounds. That's crazy. And it says that the spear, scholars believe that easily could have been 12. 12 or more feet long. The actual spear, 12ft long, and they're hurling it like it's a pencil. These are giants. And he's killed. Lami is killed by Elhanan. Elhanan was a member of the 30. If you know the 30 is a capital T. The 30 were some of David's mighty men. And this guy Elhanan kills Lami. And then we find this weird giant in verse six, he was at war with Gath. There was a man of great stature. This guy's not even named, probably shouldn't be, because he just had just crazy 24 fingers and toes all together. He had six fingers and six toes on each hand and foot. And again, part of that, I believe, is the Rephaim or even the Nephilim may have been just this corrupt DNA. And that corrupt DNA maybe caused some of this deformity, we don't know. But again, this man of great stature with six fingers and six toes on each hand and foot, it. That'd be a crazy sight to see as well. Not only do you have an 8 to 10 foot giant chasing you. He's got more fingers and toes. It's like, all right, this is creepy, but the Bible says he defied Israel. Isn't that what Goliath did? Goliath defied the God of Israel. This giant defies and taunts Israel. These giants are anti God. These are not good people. And he is killed by Jonathan. Now this is again, it's not the Jonathan that was friends with David in the reign of Saul. This is David's nephew Jonathan. So two of David's nephew nephews killed giants. And then two of David's mighty men killed these giants. And then it tells us again in verse 8, these were born to the giant in Gath, but again that, that Hebrew is rephaimed. And they fell by the hand of David and by the hand of his servants. So Goliath was just the tip of the iceberg. They still had more giants to slay. And they did. And because when you come against God, you, you're going to lose. All right, if you're in, you know, these giants anti God, everything against the God of Israel, they're no match for, for the God of Israel who used David and his mighty men to defeat these giants. Pick it up in chapter 21. And this is where we're going to actually just park it for now. And we're going to have most of our Bible study in chapter 21. This is a very famous passage to most of us. If you've read the Bible, it's also paralleled. You can Write down with 2nd Samuel, chapter 24, 1st Chronicles 21, parallel 2nd Samuel 24. And it says here now Satan stood up against Israel, or incited David and moved and moved David to number Israel. Verse 2. So David said to Joab, and to the leaders of the people, go number Israel from Beersheba to Dan, and bring the number of them to me, that I may know it. And Joab answered, may the Lord make his people a hundred times more than they are. But my Lord the King, are they not all my Lord's servants? Why then does my Lord have required this thing? Why should he cause. Why should he be a cause of guilt in Israel? Verse 4. Nevertheless, the king's word prevailed against Joab. Therefore Joab departed and went throughout all Israel and came to Jerusalem. Then Joab gave the sum of the number of the people to David. All Israel had 1,100,000 men who drew the sword. And Judah had 470,000 men who drew the sword. But he did not count Levi and Benjamin among them. For the king's word was abominable to Joab. So I'm going to pause there and then we're going to pick it up in verse seven soon. What's going on here? In chapter 21 of First Chronicles, we're introduced to this famous story that's. That appears in 2nd Samuel 24 about David's sin regarding a census. Okay. And what's interesting about this is that it tells us very plainly in verse one, Satan stood up against Israel and moved David to number or count the fighting men of Israel. And David does this. Now, again, if you know your Bibles and you go back to second Samuel 24, it does not even mention Satan. It actually says that the Lord moved David to do this thing, but he was angry with Israel. We don't know what God was angry about, but it does say God's anger was aroused against Israel and he had moved David to take this census. So it's very interesting when you compare, then you're like, well, who was it? Was it God that kind of tested David and moved him to this? Was it Satan? It was both. And here's how this does not contradict. This actually complements, and we get more insight. Just like the Gospels, they don't contradict, they complement each other. When it says here in verse 20, verse 1 of chapter 21, Satan stood up against Israel and moved David to number Israel. Satan, I believe, is a part of this temptation to get David to show off his pride and glory and in a way, fall. Remember, David already fell with Bathsheba. God forgave him. Now here's again one of other David's sins that is recorded in the Bible. Thank God that none of our sins are really recorded anywhere in the Scriptures. But you got a lot of David's sins that appear all throughout Scripture. And David's like, there you go, that's. That's mean. Satan, though, entices David to do this. But Satan, just like he appears in Job chapter one, cannot do anything unless he gets permission from the Lord first. It's the same thing. God is still sovereign. God will always be sovereign. But God sometimes allows Satan to even do his will. Sounds kind of odd or oxymoron. But God is sovereign. And God, from 2nd Samuel 24, we get a glimpse that he was angry with Israel. Something was happening and maybe David was just not leading the way God wanted him to. Something was going on and David just gives in. That we see to his pride already. And Satan is allowed to do this. He tempts David and David gives into his temptation. But God gets very angry over this. God gets very angry. Now, he doesn't kill David, but there are consequences for what David does. And again, he goes to Joab and he says, joab, I want you to count the fighting men all the way from Beersheba to Dan. That basically was from the southernmost point to the northernmost point, all of Israel and Judah. He says, I want you to count. I want to see how many fighting men there are. Joab has a little bit of common sense and says, david, love you, man. They were actually cousins. In a way, they were related. Hey, you're my lord. You're my king. But I think this is a mistake. I don't think you should do this. And he gives some counsel and advice, but it tells us David doesn't listen. No, I still want to count the fighting men. Now, why would David need to count the fighting men? It was because of, in a way, the word pride. And he wanted to see how grand and glorious am I as king with all these fighting men. It was a way for David to see, man, look how good I am. Now, this is close to David's end of his reign. He's coming to a closure. Some scholars believe that this may have been 20 years after the sin with Bathsheba. He might be in his 70s, roughly, and he's again tempted. But he gives into his temptation. And we see that when he gives into his temptation, that was already maybe in a way, brewing in his heart. That I want to see how much I've attained in my mighty men. And I want to see how big and grand the army of Israel is. Well, wait, David, it's not. It's not your kingdom. It's God's kingdom. And David is hoarding it for himself. And he uses Joab. I want you to go count. All right. He used Joab for everything. I was like, man, David, sometimes just you gotta love David. And then you gotta question, like, shake your head like, david, what are you doing? What are you doing? When are you gonna learn? But that's why he's one of my favorite Bible characters. It's because we can relate to him. We can relate to him. And why he's one of my favorite Bible characters is because he was so sensitive to his own sin. We're going to see quickly. He is going to repent. He is going to quickly repent. That's why he was different than Saul. Saul struggled with that word repentance. And he just. He came a little. He came so close. But God's like, that wasn't enough. And David's like, oh, man, I. I messed up. I messed up. And it's funny because you never hear Saul committing adultery. You never hear Saul counting a census. And yet David does all that. But yet he was still a man after God's own heart. The reason he was a man after God's own heart is because he always knew when to confess his sin and pursue righteousness and pour out his heart to the Lord. And Saul just couldn't do it. There was pride there. But David, again, he's built up in this pride. He's tempted by Satan to do this, but God was sovereign and God allowed it. And he tells Joab, I want you to do it anyway. So they count the mighty men. And if you can do the math from verse 5 down to verse 6, the results show that there were about 1,570,000 warriors among the tribes of Israel and Judah. Now, scholars believe that those were just the fighting men, 1,570,000. So if you include women and children, they estimate that there may have been a total population of 6 million Jews in Israel at that time. 6 million. And David is saying, hey, I want to do this, and Joab, I need you to do it. But look what happens in verse six. But Joab did not count Levi and Benjamin among them. For the king's word was an abominable to Joab. Joab's like, I'm only going to count 10 tribes. I can't do this. He. He was so conscience stricken, he's like, I'm not even going to count Levi and Benjamin. I'm going to leave them out of this. And he's thinking, I'm gonna take a risk and see if David even knows. And apparently David didn't even know. But Job's like, I'm not doing this. I don't like what David is asking of me. But Joab was so loyal. You read more about Joab and the life, the character of Joab. He was very loyal to the king. He would do anything, anything for the king. He was the very one who killed Absalom, David's own son, because Absalom was a threat to David. But David told Joab, don't do it. And Joab was like, I'm loyal to you in the kingdom. So that's a whole different story. But Joab is just this loyal commander of the army. Now look at verse seven. We're going to have to breeze through this verse seven. And God was displeased with this thing, the census that David did Therefore, he struck Israel. So David said to God, I have sinned greatly. You can underline or highlight sinned. I have sinned greatly because I have done this thing. But now I pray, take away the iniquity highlighter circle. Iniquity, your servant, for I have done very foolishly. And we've learned so far from this. The first thing I want us to look at from 1st Chronicles 21. I've got three points that we're going to look at before the ending of this teaching. Number one is sin causes distance and shame. But confession brings healing, forgiveness, and intimacy with God. What we see in the story is this sin that David does is going to cause a lot of shame, guilt, and distance from God. And David can feel it. And David is crying out to the Lord. Now in chapter 24 of Second Samuel, you don't have to turn there. It gives us a little bit more insight. Chapter 24 of 2 Samuel, verse 10, it says, and David's heart condemned him or was stricken after he had numbered the people. Like David's heart already knew. Oh, my goodness, what have I done? He knew. And then he confesses that sin to the Lord. So David had a conscience. We all have a conscience. And that conscience, when it's linked with God, is even better, because then David says, I know what I did was wrong and I'm confessing this sin. But sin ultimately will always bring distance. And it adds on shame. Adds on shame. Isaiah 59. 2. You can write this down, Isaiah 59. 2, but your iniquities have separated you from God. Your sins have hidden his face from you so that he will not hear. Isaiah 50:9 to your iniquities have separated you from God. There's a separation that happens, and sometimes we can feel that because sin attacks us physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually. It attacks all components of who we are, and it separates us, we can feel it from God. I feel distant from him. Exactly. Because you're in some sort of sin. And. And it causes that. And on top of that, Satan will add shame to that iniquity. In Hebrew that I had you underlined, it really means guilt. Iniquity means guilt. Take this guilt from me, Lord. I feel so guilty, what I've done. I can see David even crying, writing this down or pouring his heart out. I've sinned. I've done this thing of. I don't know what I was thinking. Now I pray, Lord, take this guilt, this iniquity from your servant. I've done so foolishly. See, he recognized the distance. But I Love the confession that he has, because confession is going to bring healing, forgiveness and intimacy with God. I love that about our Lord. You can write this down. The Bible actually says that we are to confess sin to two different types of people. Confess our sin to each other. So people that you know and confess your sin to God. And there are two different types of confession. We're to confess our sin to God for forgiveness. That's 1 John 1:9. We confess our sin to God for forgiveness, but we are to confess our sins to each other for healing. That's James 5, 16. You confess your sins to God to forgive. God is the only one who can forgive. None of us can forgive each other. But then James tells us in chapter five, confess your sins to one another. Find that core group, find that, find that accountability partner, if you will. Find that, you know, hopefully it's your spouse. Find someone you trust and confess sin, because that will bring healing. It's a wonder what confession does. But David even writes, when I hid my sin, it made me so my. My bones were aching. It crippled me. And I think he actually meant physically, too. I was physically ill because I hid this sin from you. Isn't that what sin does to us? The more you hide it, the more it just makes us bitter, makes us angry. That it can. It can show physically in us. It can make us feel irritable. We get sick. There is something about what sin does to us, even physically, we get sick. So David's like, I got to confess this. And confession will bring not only healing, but forgiveness and intimacy with God. When, when we draw near to God, James tells us God will draw near to us. There's this intimacy and this fellowship that God wants with us. The more we draw near to him and we confess certain sin to him, the more he will draw near to us. He doesn't grow more distant like, nah, I can't take this. I don't want to talk about this right now. We do that with each other or sometimes when we confess sin, it might be too heavy for someone to hear. And that's what sin does. It's heavy. It's a burden. But we're to cast that onto the Lord. He cares for us, and we're to cast it on each other so that we can help each other and work with each other. But it's for intimacy, healing, and forgiveness. And David understood this. Verse nine, Pick it up here. It says, then the Lord spoke to Gad. This was David's seer, or prophet. And saying, go and tell David saying thus, Says the Lord, I offer you three things. Okay, he's gonna be like, david, I hear you, but there has to be consequences for your sin. And here's what it is. I'm gonna offer you three options, and it all has to do with three. Choose one of them for yourself that I may do it to you. Verse 11. Gad came to David and said to him, thus says the Lord, choose for yourself either. Here's the three things. Either three years of famine, three months to be defeated by your foes, or. Or your enemies with the sword overtaking you, or three days of the sword of the Lord, the plague in the land with the angel of the Lord destroying throughout all the territory of Israel. Now consider what answer I should take back to him who sent me. Oh, boy. Now look what David says. David says to Gad in verse 13, I am in great distress. Yeah, you were given three options, David. Here's the options. You either have three years of famine in your land. Ouch. Not good. That affects a lot of people. Three months that you're defeated by your enemies. Your enemies are constantly attacking you. You're going to be defeated for three months or three days. But it's a plague from the Lord. Most likely it says the angel of the Lord or the. The angel that destroys the destroying angel, which is very interesting topic. And David says, okay, thanks, Gad. I need to take some time to think about this. I know that I have to choose one. And I am. I take responsibility for my sin. And hear what he says here at the end of verse 13. I'm in great distress. Please let me fall into the hand of the Lord, for his mercies are very great, but do not let me fall into the hand of man. What he's basically saying is, I choose option number three. And honestly, that I can see why David did that. The. The scholars agree that, you know, the famine would have affected a lot of people. That would have been hard. Three years of that, Three months of the enemies attacking, taking captive women, children, who knows? And David says, look, I just want three days. I'll take the plague. I'd rather be in the hand of God at his mercy than at my enemies. Does that make sense? I'd rather be at God's mercy. And so the Lord said, okay, you've chosen that. I'm going to have to give that to you. And so we see here in verse 14, the Lord. Verse verse 14, the Lord sent a plague upon Israel and 70,000 men of Israel fell, and God sent an angel to Jerusalem. This is the Destroying angel, or better known as the angel of the Lord. And it says here he sent an angel to destroy Jerusalem and he was destroying. The Lord looked and relented of the disaster, saying, I don't want this anymore. God actually relents, and he says to the angel who was destroying, it is enough now restrain your hand. And the angel of the Lord stood by the threshing floor of Ornan the Jebusite. Keep reading. Then David lifted his eyes and saw the angel of the Lord standing between the earth and heaven, having in his hand a drawn sword stretched out over Jerusalem. Okay, I don't think this is some mystical creature. I think what David is seeing is some physical, spiritual angel of the Lord, which I have a theory of who it might be. And he says his sword was stretched over Jerusalem. So David and the elders, clothed in sackcloth, fell on their faces. Verse 17. David says to God, was it not I who commanded the people to be numbered? I'm the one who has sinned and done this evil indeed. But these sheep, the people, what have they done? Let your hand, I pray, O Lord, my God, be against me and my father's house, but not against your people, that they should be plagued. And therefore the angel of the Lord commanded Gad to say to David that David should go erect an altar to the Lord on the threshing floor of Ornan the Jebusite. We'll look at him real quick. But number two, I want us to look at this. God is righteous in both justice and mercy. God has a great balance with justice and mercy. He had to give justice. There was consequences for sin. There's consequences for my sin and your sin. And God knows this, and we should know this too. God takes sin seriously. Whenever God takes sin seriously, we should take it seriously as well, but also take his mercy seriously too. God is a just God, and he's righteous in his justice, and he's righteous in his mercy. And actually God has mercy right here. He could have let the destroying angel keep going. But God says, no, no, no, I. I want you to stop. That's enough. I can't take it anymore. I want you to stop. And then David cries out to the Lord. He's like, I did this sin. Why are you. Why are you doing this? Lord, they're just sheep. They're innocent. It was me who sinned. Take it to me. And what does he do? David actually puts on sackcloth with the elders, and they fall on their faces. This is a sign of humility. You can write that down. They were humble they humbled themselves before the Lord. Psalm 89, 14. You can write this down. Psalm 89, 14. Righteousness and justice are the foundation of your throne. Mercy and truth go before your face. That's about the Lord. Righteousness and justice are the foundation of your throne, but mercy and truth go before your face. Write down Proverbs 29, 23. This is about David. Pride ends in humiliation, while humility brings honor. And Ephesians 2, 4. Hopefully all of us know this, but God, who is rich in mercy, God is very merciful, and yet he does judge the sin of David, but he also still has mercy as well. And as the rest of the story goes, I'm gonna have to just kind of jump through this real quick. Ornan, it says here in verse 18, he owns this threshing floor. And it says here in verse 19, David went up at the word of Gad, which he had spoken in the name of the Lord. Ornan turned and saw the angel, okay, And I believe this is an angel of the Lord, which is a christophany. I believe this may be Jesus himself and his four sons. Ornan's four sons who were with him hid themselves. They're like, whoa, what is this? They see this destroying angel with a sword. But Ornan continues threshing wheat. That's awesome. He's like, yeah, it's all right. Just an angel with a sword. Let's keep going. So David came to Ornan, and Ornan looked and saw David, and he went to David. And then David starts talking to him in verse 22. And I'm going to summarize real quick. What David does is he says, ornan, I want to buy this threshing floor. Where you're at this, it was a. Basically like a stone flat surface where you would thresh wheat. And David says, hey, look, I need to buy this from you because I need to offer a sacrifice to the Lord. Oran says, you can have it, my Lord. Have it for free. David says, no, I need to pay for this because I. I've done a great sin and I'm paying for my. My sins, and I need to buy this from you. And it says in verse 24, King David said to Oran, no, I will surely buy it for the full price. On not take what is yours for the Lord, nor offer burnt offerings that which cost me nothing. Look at verse 25. So David gave Oran 600 shekels of gold. That's 15 pounds of gold by weight for the place. Did the math. This would actually have been equivalent to Our dollar amount of $1.2 million that he buys this threshing floor going to give you $1.2 million or like. Okay, sounds great. Verse 27, the Lord commanded the angel and he returned his sword to its sheath. But it's what interesting in here, in verse 28, at that time, when David saw that the Lord had answered him on the threshing floor of or in the Jebusite, he sacrificed there. Now I want to close with this. What's interesting about this place of the threshing floor of Ornan is that it would actually be the place of history and future importance. This place of the threshing floor of Ornan was also known as Mount Moriah. You can write down 2nd Chronicles 3:1 if you know your Bibles. Mount Moriah was the same place where Abraham offered Isaac as a sacrifice in Genesis 22. It's the same hills actually where Jesus would die on the cross. So my last thing I want to say is David paid a price to buy the threshing floor, to offer sacrifices to atone for his sin. But number three, Jesus paid the ultimate price as our sacrifice. Same place where David buys this threshing floor would be the same place Jesus dies for the sins of the world. But see, David had to pay a price. I need to buy this. I need to atone for my sins, and I'm gonna sacrifice up here. And God says, hey, about a thousand years later, I'm gonna do the same thing to my son, except he's gonna pay the ultimate price. You can write this down. 1 Corinthians 6:20. You were bought at a price. 1st Corinthians 7:23. God paid a high price for you. Ephesians 5:2. He loved us and offered himself as a sacrifice for us. A pleasing aroma to God. And last but not least, 1st Peter 1:18 through 19, for you know that God paid a ransom to save you from the empty life you inherited from your ancestors. And the ransom he paid was not mere gold or silver. It was the precious blood of Christ, the sinless, spotless Lamb of God. Amen. Amen. These three things I just want us to take home with. Know that sin causes distance and shame, but when we confess sin, we are. We have healing, forgiveness and intimacy with God. And also God is righteous in both justice and his mercy. And last, we know that Jesus now paid the ultimate price as our sacrifice on that same very threshing floor that David bought, always pointing to Jesus. Amen. Pause and let's pray and we'll be done God, we thank you so much for this time. I do pray, Lord, that as we glean from your word, Lord, Even out of 1st Chronicles 21, a lot's going on here. But Lord, everything is just so beautifully timeless. Lord, what we take from here is stuff we can still apply to our own lives. Lord. I pray, Lord, that if we have stumbled into sin and we feel that shame, we feel that distance from you. Lord, you are not far. All we have to do is confess and draw near to you and you are right back with us. Confess sin, Lord, you do call us to repent and confess so that we can have healing and forgiveness. God, I thank you that you're a God who is both just, righteous and merciful all at the same time. You're so pure, you're so good, and you know how to deal with sin, but you also know how to give mercy and grace to us that need it. And Lord, I do thank you that you, as the son of God, paid the ultimate price on that same very mountain where David bought the threshing floor. And David had to pay a price, Lord, but you offered yourself, which is priceless, to save us, Lord, from our sins. Thank you, God, for this time that we've had together. I pray, Lord, that this would be edifying to us as a body of believers. It would be encouraging and convicting all at the same time. Thank you, Lord, for your word. Thank you, God, for this time we can meet together freely. Go before us as we go our separate ways. Bring us back safely Sunday and next Wednesday. We love you, Jesus, and it's in your Son's name we pray all these things. Amen.